Chemical bonding game: ionic, covalent and metallic
A chemistry game where bonds are built. In ionic compounds there is a metal and a non-metal with their valence electrons drawn: you move electrons one by one from the metal to the non-metal and add atoms until every atom has a full shell; that shows why magnesium chloride is MgCl₂ and alumina is Al₂O₃. In molecules, non-metals share: you place single, double or triple bonds between the atoms of water, CO₂ or N₂ until every octet is complete, and the lone pairs draw themselves. There is also painting the periodic table into metals, non-metals and metalloids, and sorting real substances into ionic, molecular, giant covalent or metallic.
Chemistry · Secondary, Sixth form
Whether an element is a metal or a non-metal decides the bond: metal with non-metal, ionic; non-metal with non-metal, covalent; metal with metal, metallic. Colouring the table when you answer fixes the “staircase” that separates them, and hydrogen shows up green even though it is in group 1: it is a non-metal.
Why salt conducts when dissolved but not as a solid, why diamond is extremely hard even though it is covalent, or why copper conducts: each explanation links the properties with what the electrons are doing. That is exactly the reasoning question that comes up most in science exams.
Magnesium loses two electrons and becomes Mg²⁺; chlorine gains one and becomes Cl⁻; to make the compound neutral you need two chlorines: MgCl₂. The wrong options are the typical mistakes, like forgetting the subscripts or giving the charge the wrong sign.
"A magnesium with two electrons and a chlorine with seven appear. The student passes one, the chlorine is complete, but the magnesium has one left over: they add a second chlorine, pass it the electron and everything is complete. The formula appears by itself: MgCl₂."
Prefer to learn without screens? Try this analogue version:
With a battery, a small bulb and two wires, build a circuit with a gap between two wire ends.
Touch the wire ends to a paper clip (metal), some dry salt and some dry sugar, and note whether the bulb lights up.
Dissolve the salt in water and test again; do the same with the sugar.
Explain the results using the bond type of each substance: metallic, ionic or covalent.
If you like Which Bond?, these activities work similar skills:
More practice on · Chemistry
Chemical Bonding
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