pauraque | Entries tagged with games: developer: absolute magic

The thing I remember most vividly about this puzzle game from my childhood is the opening cutscene, which explains that Dr. Lanny B. Brilliant created a bunch of new elements but they spilled out of the beaker, and now you have to find and stabilize them so he can collect his Nobel Prize. This includes a charmingly crackly digitized voice line of Dr. Brilliant reacting with dismay to the elements escaping ("What the... what the f... ohhhh....!") which for some reason is a core memory for me.

screenshot of colorful balls falling from tubes into a beaker

screenshot of colorful balls falling from tubes into a beaker

As the color-coded atoms fall from above, you have to catch them in a test tube and choose where in the beaker below to drop them to form "molecules"—vertical, horizontal, or diagonal chains of the same color—which then disappear. If you drop too many or run out of space in the beaker, you lose.

( Read more... )

I was actually searching for the full registered version of this game for years and kept coming up empty-handed, but it has finally turned up on abandonware sites! (Tip to game developers: Please call your games something distinctive and easily searchable. Thirty years from now, aging 2020s kids will thank you.)

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  - the edge [1]
  - the game kitchen [1]
  - the learning company [2]
  - the software toolworks [2]
  - third world [1]
  - thomas colthurst [1]
  - tiago rech [2]
  - tokoronyori [1]
  - uppercut games [2]
  - videlectrix [4]
  - videocult [1]
  - wagotabi limited [1]
  - westwood studios [1]
  - wishfully studios [1]
  - za/um [1]
- genre
  - action/arcade [6]
  - adult [1]
  - adventure [45]
  - artillery [1]
  - bullet hell [1]
  - city builder [2]
  - deduction [3]
  - edutainment [13]
  - exploration [11]
  - mmorpg [2]
  - platformer [15]
  - puzzle [26]
  - racing [1]
  - roguelike [4]
  - rpg [9]
  - shooter [6]
  - simulation [3]
  - strategy [3]
  - survival crafting [2]
  - survival horror [1]
  - tower defense [1]
  - virtual tabletop [2]
  - visual novel [5]
- year
  - 1980 [2]
  - 1981 [1]
  - 1982 [1]
  - 1983 [4]
  - 1984 [7]
  - 1985 [3]
  - 1986 [2]
  - 1987 [3]
  - 1988 [3]
  - 1989 [6]
  - 1990 [10]
  - 1991 [6]
  - 1992 [4]
  - 1993 [5]
  - 1994 [1]
  - 1995 [5]
  - 1997 [1]
  - 1998 [2]
  - 1999 [2]
  - 2005 [1]
  - 2008 [3]
  - 2009 [3]
  - 2010 [2]
  - 2011 [1]
  - 2012 [3]
  - 2013 [1]
  - 2014 [3]
  - 2015 [2]
  - 2016 [4]
  - 2017 [5]
  - 2018 [5]
  - 2019 [5]
  - 2020 [8]
  - 2021 [7]
  - 2022 [10]
  - 2023 [10]
  - 2024 [8]
  - 2025 [7]
  - 2026 [1]
gaming [9]
kink [7]
language [4]
memes [33]
- ao3 [3]
- december talking [20]
- fandom a-z [6]
- femslash february [6]
- first lines [2]
- five questions [2]
- letter [1]
- love [2]
- something every day [23]
- titles [1]
movies [12]
music [33]
personal
- dreams [8]
- family [1]
- health [11]
- mental health [7]
- mishaps [5]
- neurodivergence [1]
- parenting [1]
- random [6]
- remembrance [8]
- travel [12]
- work [1]
photos [39]
- fall colors [3]
- flowers [14]
- scenery [26]
- snow [12]
- urban [11]
plays [4]
podfic [7]
poetry [4]
queerness [15]
- gender [15]
reading [4]
social media exodus [3]
three weeks for dreamwidth [1]
videos [4]
weather [11]
writing [44]
year in review [18]
youtube [19]