Education and fun are always a great combo! Playing board games is a great way for kids to pick up new skills while having a good time, and we’ve designed Little Alchemists with this in mind. Based on the original Alchemists, Little Alchemists is a streamlined, lighter spin on potion crafting and deduction puzzle fun for 2-4 players. It’s also a unique multi-chapter game for children and families who want an experience that grows in depth and complexity over time as players gain more skill. Read on to learn more about the game and how it provides different ways for kids to learn as they play.
How to use a tablet or smartphone device better
Whether we like it or not, smartphones and tablets are now fairly ingrained in modern society. They’re everywhere. Kids know what they are, they’re curious about them, and they want to play with them. Little Alchemists gives young players a structured activity for using these electronic devices by pairing them with physical components for play.
Much like the original Alchemists game, Little Alchemists features a free companion app that you load onto your tablet or smartphone and use to scan sets of potion ingredients to discover their unique combined results. The app is accessible, and it offers a more interactive way to use the device than simply scrolling, since it’s used with the physical components of the game. Even though players are using the app in the game, they are still connected to the real world through interacting with the game’s physical components and by passing the device to other players when it’s their turn.
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Gradual learning to boost confidence and skill
Little Alchemists is designed for incremental learning. The first chapter starts off with very basic gameplay: players are selecting potion ingredients, scanning them to create potions, and then selling potions to adventurers that show up. From there, each chapter gradually layers new mechanics and concepts onto the core gameplay loop, expanding the depth and challenge. This helps kids feel smart, as they get better at each chapter and progress to new challenges. Typically, it will take kids a few playthroughs before they master the skills introduced in each chapter and earn enough keys to unlock the next one.
As young players improve their skills across each chapter of this deduction puzzle game, they’ll gain a deeper understanding of the core mechanisms — naturally uncovering more things to do and learning what’s possible. This often leads to satisfying “aha moments” when they figure something new out for the first time. For example, they can deduce information from their own potion crafting experiments, but eventually they’ll realize that they can also deduce information from other players’ actions, too.
Though it’s based on the heavier eurogame design of Alchemists, Little Alchemists is much lighter and doesn’t throw a ton of information at players up-front. It lays everything out gradually over time and gives kids room to figure things out for themselves. Since they’re designed to be played multiple times, each chapter’s core loop is also relatively short, which helps kids maintain their focus and attention.
Accessible gameplay from a very early age
One of the other fun things about Little Alchemists is the way that it grows with players. Even children who might be too young to play the game by themselves can still have fun with it if you sit with them and guide them through it. Small kids who might not understand the deduction mechanics yet can help you with scanning the ingredients with your phone, picking out the correct potion based on the result (since they’ll see the completed potion on the screen), and then finding a proper spot to place the potion on the deduction triangle.
During our playtesting, we found that this activity was fun and stimulating for kids who were too young to play a full game of Little Alchemists. This way a parent can always help out if a younger child wants to play with their sibling, so they can feel included, for example. And as kids develop more, they can start playing the game for themselves, progressing on to more complex chapters as their skills and understanding improves.
It’s also worth noting that reading isn’t currently necessary until the last two chapters. Even so, we’re working to try to make it so that kids don’t need to read at all to be able to play and enjoy the game.
Thanks for reading! We hope your family will check out Little Alchemists when it launches this summer at Gen Con 2024! Don’t forget to subscribe to the game page on Board Game Geek to get updates!