Are you familiar with Alchemists and wondering what’s the same (or different) in Little Alchemists? Maybe you’re interested in Little Alchemists but curious about its older heavier euro game sibling? Or perhaps both games sound cool and you’re just not sure which one might be for you? In this short and sweet article, we’ll briefly break some of the key similarities and differences between both of these two unique potion crafting and logic deduction games.

To begin, let’s take a moment to talk about the original Alchemists for some context, shall we? Released back in 2014, Alchemists is a heavy euro game of potion craft, logic deduction, and alchemical experimentation. In the game, you play as aspiring alchemists who are gathering unusual ingredients, brewing and testing potions, writing and debunking theories, using artifacts to aid your studies, and trying to master their mystical craft.

In addition to the logic deduction aspect of brewing and testing potion, tracking results, and writing theories, Alchemists also prominently features worker placement as an action drafting mechanic. It was also one of the first board games to utilize a free companion app for scanning ingredients, tracking behind-the-scenes logic, and handling other important aspects of gameplay between the physical and digital realm.

What’s similar in Little Alchemists?

At its core, Little Alchemists revolves around many of the same themes and activities as the original. As young kids who’ve discovered their grandpa’s dusty old alchemy set, you’re still combining ingredients by scanning them with the app to brew potions and marking the results down on your deduction grid. You’re still trying to make deductions and write theories about what ingredients are used in each potion game-to-game. You’re still trying to sell potions to adventurers for money and points. Little Alchemists even uses a similar free companion app as a key part of its gameplay.

That said, there are also some pretty important differences that set both games apart.

What’s Different Between Alchemists and Little Alchemists?

Little Alchemists is faster and more streamlined - It has all the deduction focused gameplay of the original, but removes the theory debunking and worker placement aspects of the game while also simplifying other areas of the experience. The original Alchemists takes a long time to learn and can take over two hours to play a full game. Little Alchemists lets you dive in immediately and can be playing in 20-40 minutes. It’s also designed for high replayability.

Little Alchemists is cuter and more kid friendly - From the brighter, cuter looking artwork to the way we chose cardboard for ingredient tokens and other key elements, we’ve taken the original vibe of Alchemists and made it a lot lighter and more accessible for younger players and their families.

Little Alchemists is chapter based - Each of the game’s seven chapters adds new components and mechanics to build on the previous one, expanding the game over time as you play. Chapters two through seven are contained in separate boxes that nest inside the bottom of the main game box. As you earn key stickers by solving puzzle challenges across multiple replays, you’ll get to unlock more chapters and incorporate new elements into the core game. This allows the game’s strategic depth and complexity to grow alongside the age and skill of players. It’s also a lot of fun to open up a new chapter box to see what’s inside!

Little Alchemists requires the companion app to play - In the original Alchemists, we included a game master role for an additional non-player who would help run the game logic for other players. Not many people utilized this feature, since it can all be just as easily handled with the app. As such, we’ve removed that element in Little Alchemists.

You can learn more about the original Alchemists here and Little Alchemists here! Also, check out our article series on the CGE blog, to go behind-the-scenes of Little Alchemists development!