This is like Quake vs. modern games.

In Quake, you get the story in the booklet and it's up to you to learn the game.

In modern games you're constantly interrupted with an explanation of what you can do, should do, and so on.

I love this one (Infinite Craft) because it's up to you to discover and discovery is really fast because nothing interrupts you.

allchemy.io should have a mode without animations and explanations, maybe explanations when you hover over crafted objects on the right pane.

This. Duolingo is in the same vein which interrupts my flow. Animations shouldn't continuously block the interaction of the experience. The majority should probably be ancillary and be a visual flourish.

I like them.

I assume these sites are about exploring lots of different things, even if they don't work as much as some would like.

You should be able to click right through them - but agreed. Will add an option to disable them in the near future!