Top 5 games of this jam! I cannot tell you for how long I've been looking for a game like this! This was so incredibly fun and I spent such a long time getting lost in making new molecules and playing around with them. Please make more games like this/expand this one! You have a really big fan hungry for more chemistry games! it's a travesty you dont have more ratings
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Atomic Assembler's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #435 | 3.824 | 3.824 |
| Overall | #616 | 3.824 | 3.824 |
| Creativity | #879 | 3.824 | 3.824 |
| Style | #1101 | 3.824 | 3.824 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
Building molecules from Atoms.
Development Time
48 hours
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/chalkboard-background-with-chemistry-information_4426518.htm
https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/set-comic-speech-bubble-cartoon-style_7151644.htm
Comments
Wow, thank you so much for your incredibly kind words! I'm thrilled that you had such a great time with the game. If there's enough interest, I'd love to keep working on this project beyond the jam. I've already gathered some great feedback that could make the experience even better. Stay tuned, and thanks again for your support—it's super motivating to know there's someone out there eager for more games like this!
Very good concept. It's really well put together and puzzles are very clever. Good job.
Submitted
Wild Scaled WestI have struggled with chemistry a lot during high school and something like this on a bigger scale would really help me as a visual learner. I feel like trying to figure out what the logical molecule arrangement would be makes it easy to remember(I will forever remember benzene is a nice hexagon). Even though it is not really a game I really like this. Good job!
Submitted
ContaminantThanks for the feedback! I'm really glad it resonates with you, especially as a visual learner. I actually see it as more of a puzzle game myself. That might be why it works well for those of us who don’t always connect with traditional methods. My 10-year-old nephew even said it’s a really good game—he managed to finish it on his own after I explained the concepts in the first few levels. agree that the quest could use some adjustments to better explain the rules and then just give clues on how to build the molecule, letting the player take their own approach. There’s still a lot of work to do to make it a good educational tool, but feedback like this gives me some great ideas for improvements. Thanks again! 😊
It is a very nice educational tool that makes learning entertaining but still by definition it cannot be a game because there is no win or lose state or gameplay loop for that matter. That’s not a bad thing and I am not downplaying it by any means. In fact I don’t think this should be a game it is already great being what it is. An educational tool that makes it more accessible to learn chemistry for a specific group of people who like you said “don’t always connect with traditional methods”. Though I do agree it feels more gamey than most educational tools which is the part of it that I like the most eg. selling your molecules and instantly getting information about them which is both rewarding and useful to learn more about the elements. If you are going to work on this project more in the future I wish you best of luck with it!
i wanted to play your game but it doesnt run on my pc for some reason:(
Submitted
Stuck in Cmajorthis is such a nice game. And a very useful one as well. I hope you make a mobile version too so that a lot of students can actually play and learn at the same time. This game could be an effective tool to teach chemistry to students that dont like the subject as sometimes visualization is better than mere words. I wish you all the best.
Submitted
Geometry ShiftWow, in the game you said you did this in about 20 hours. This is phenomenal for that amount of time. It's so polished and works so well. I'd say this could easily become an educational tool for helping kids learn chemistry! I think it'd be fun if the atoms repelled one another once bonded so the molecules would sort of self-arrange into their natural shape, but maybe that wouldn't translate well for a 2D game. Very impressive! Good job!
Submitted
LlamageddonThanks so much! I actually came up with the idea late Saturday night and initially thought it’d take around 6 hours. But then I ended up working on it most of Sunday and Monday! 😄 There are definitely some issues, but I really appreciate the kind words.
Turning it into an full educational tool would require a ton more work, but that was definitely on my mind, which is why I tagged it as educational (even though I see it more as a puzzle game). The idea of self-arranging molecules is really cool! The challenge would be projecting it in 2D, and I’m honestly not sure how complex the math behind bond angles is. I’d probably need to bring in a real chemist for that!
I like the game a lot. I think it would be great if you got your custom notation closer to the scientific notation as that one is dingo in my opinion. I think maybe you should focus a bit more on making players understand what they're doing rather than telling them what to do. But for 48 this is more than I would have expected. Sadly my favourite atom Radon didn't make the cut.
I think for a full game I would expect to see some variation after a while. Clicking around like this is fun for a while is fun for a bit but after even only 24 of these I got a little bored. As a stretch you could probably oven turn it into a factory style game where you develop enzymes to make the molecules for you, but that would take it into a different direction than the game is currently headed.
Well done, even the starting menu. Did you have that one lying around or did you make it during the time frame? Keep up the great work ;)
Submitted
A Shepherd's SurpriseThanks so much for the detailed feedback! The notation algorithm needs a big rework, along with how the molecules are saved in memory. When I first came up with the idea, it seemed simple, but it turned out to be way more complex than I expected!
I agree that to turn this into a full game, some additional mechanics would be needed. I love the idea of enzymes, although they might be a bit too complex to implement fully. But maybe they could start as an abstraction, similar to how I used atomic numbers as currency. An enzyme lab that prepares molecules or parts could let the player focus on more complex mechanisms—that’s definitely something to think about.
The starting menu was made from scratch during the jam. I had this vision of flying molecules, so I just had to go for it. The images in the background, though, are from Freepik. I’m really glad you enjoyed the game, and I truly appreciate your valuable feedback! Sorry that Radon didn’t make it into the game! 😄
Very interesting concept!
It starts perhaps as a bit too guided, but it quickly became an interesting puzzle once you are without the guide.
Really liked it!
Submitted
Size StrikeThank you for your feedback! I'm glad you found the concept interesting and enjoyed the chemistry-based puzzles. You're absolutely right about the guided introduction. It's a delicate balance between providing enough guidance and letting players discover things on their own, and this can be challenging for any game designer or chemistry teacher.
My 10-year-old cousin was able to finish the game after I explained the first four quests. While this is a positive sign that the core mechanics are accessible, it also indicates that there's room for more carefully worded tasks. Essentially, the questing part should serve as a tutorial, while the sandbox mode is for those who enjoy a challenge and want to apply their new knowledge.
I'll keep this in mind when considering potential future updates. Thanks again for playing and sharing your thoughts!
I also wanted to clarify that mine was not a critic per se: as a jam game this is an amazing result you should be proud of!
I have a background in formative games for hospitals and schools, so let me say this: the world need more games that merge intriguing gameplay and formative content in a well made way.
Super thumbs up for your entry to this jam!
Thanks a ton for your kind words and encouragement! It means a lot coming from someone with your experience in the genre. If there's even a little interest in the game, I'd love to expand on it and make it even better.
As for the quality of my game jam entry, I'm never completely happy with it. That's part of the fun for me – the deadline pushes me to get things done, even if they are not perfect.
This is actually quite a decent game, given that it was done in 48 hours! Apart from it not detecting me doing methanol (or that I did it wrong), and that I was getting uncomfortable with the bond angles getting wacky (no big deal, maybe its my OCD haha), it has good potential to becoming a good teaching tool!
Submitted
Space PiratesHi Jonny_Dev,
Thanks so much for playing the game and taking the time to leave feedback! I'm delighted you enjoyed it. I've already added the methanol detection issue to our list of known bugs on the game page (and release update after the jam ends). As for the bond angles, that's a great observation. I love the idea of some autoarrange feature! That would make the game more accessible and help players focus on the chemistry concepts. I'll add that to our backlog for future updates - if there is any interest in the game. I already need a better molecule-checking logic, it is much more complex than I remembered from my school days. Lol.
Thanks again for your support and feedback. I'm always excited if a game can be a learning tool. This time I did it much more into-your-face approach.
This is really impressive for being done in 48 hours, I really see the education potential especially in organic chemistry classes to demonstrate complex reactions by "hand"
Submitted
Tongue Tied TaleThank you! I really appreciate it. In the end, the logic turned out to be much more complex than I expected. To truly make it an educational tool, it would require a better implementation of graphs, adding additional mechanisms to enable the creation of molecules with special bonds, such as carbon monoxide. And also, much more study of chemistry would be needed. 😂
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