Organic Chemistry Reaction App

Thanks for the feedback! You've got some good suggestions that I haven't thought of.

The ability to retry puzzles is something I completely missed and should 100% be there. I'll add it to my list.

I've thought about how to get information to users, but I didn't know how to do that without creating way too much work. I really like the idea of just linking to wikipedia or other resources. That would save me a lot of time and would still make the information available.

Puzzle variety is something that is just going to take time unfortunately. My hope is that the game will fill out over time.

The ability to select different puzzle types (based on functional group or mechanism) is a features that I have planned, but it hasn't been the top priority yet. It'll get there eventually though.

Unfortunately, I'm on a bit of a hiatus (for about another year) due to other commitments I've made, but work will certainly continue mid 2026.

Thanks for the feedback! Visuals have been hard for me to figure out and for now I feel like they are "baked-in", so it will be hard for me to make them look the way they should. I hope I can make them better for a version 2 of the app.

Thanks for the positive feedback! And yeah, I think I can make it downloadable. I've been planning on doing an update before the new year, so I'll see about making it downloadable when I release that update.

Hi again. I made the game downloadable, thanks for the suggestion. Please note that I haven't tested the MacOS or Linux versions. If you use one of those operating systems, I can't guarantee that the downloaded game will work (or what a user would need to do to make the download work).

The "show answer" button should be coming soonish (maybe 3 months?). I think it's the next big feature that I tackle.

I'm also very interested in fixing flaws in the puzzles. For some reactions I made up mechanisms based on my own intuition because they weren't very well described in my source materials. If you're willing, could you let me know which mechanism(s) or puzzle number(s) need fixing, what you think the mechanism should be, and ideally a source that shows the correct mechanism? I would very much appreciate this type of feedback; it's important to me that the puzzles reflect real chemistry!

Hey thanks for trying it out and giving some feedback!

I haven't had the "random puzzle" button not work for me in a while, but I've got some good ideas about what the problem might be...troubleshooting time I guess.

Regarding puzzle difficulty and skill level, this is kind of a long answer. TLDR: I'm trying for an elo system that is quite arbitrary at the moment.

 My extremely-long-term goal is for this to be like chess puzzles, where you have an Elo rating and are given puzzles equal to that rating. So rating isn't so much beginner -> intermediate -> expert, but rather just a number that goes up or down...maybe not the best way of doing it or just not the best way to present it, but that's what I'm going for at the moment. The player starts arbitrarily at 1000 and should eventually their actual skill level. Of course if you're new to chemistry, this game isn't designed for you (yet, tutorials and lessons will come eventually). There are 2 substantial obstacles with this approach. First, I don't have enough puzzles to cover a wide range of skill levels (IMO, 10k+puzzles are probably needed). Second, chemistry doesn't have Elo like chess does, so my numbers are somewhat arbitrary and based on my opinions at the moment. If you're wondering, I started at a rating of 1000 for the first few mechanisms that are taught in a 2nd year organic chemistry class in university (addition of hydrogen halides to alkenes) and went up from there. Easier puzzles might be simple acid-base reactions.