Before your first move: the screen
The game screen has two parts that matter. The large open area is the board, where you put elements and combine them. Next to it is your list: every element you have discovered so far, starting with just four. The list is your inventory. Anything in it can be dragged onto the board again whenever a recipe needs it, as many times as you like.
Above the list sits a search box marked "Search..". Type a few letters and the list shrinks to the matching elements. It does nothing for your first ten minutes, but once you have a few hundred discoveries it is the fastest way to find anything. Next to it is a sort button that changes the order of the list. The gear icon in the top right corner opens Settings, which we'll come back to further down.
The four elements you start with
Every game begins with Water, Fire, Wind and Earth. Everything else in the game, from a grain of sand to a superhero, is built out of these four, one pair at a time. To combine two elements, drag one onto the other on the board. When they meet, they merge into the result, and if it's new, it joins your list. On a phone or tablet you do the same with your finger: press, drag, drop.
The order doesn't matter. Fire dropped on Water gives the same thing as Water dropped on Fire, which is why our recipes are written simply as "Fire + Water".
Your first combinations
With four elements there are exactly ten possible pairs, counting each element paired with itself. Try all ten in your first session. These are the results in this game:
- Water + Water = Lake
- Water + Fire = Steam
- Water + Wind = Wave
- Water + Earth = Plant
- Fire + Fire = Volcano
- Fire + Wind = Smoke
- Fire + Earth = Lava
- Wind + Wind = Tornado
- Wind + Earth = Dust
- Earth + Earth = Mountain
Three of these do most of the heavy lifting later on. Plant, Dust and Steam appear in more of our recipe guides than any other elements, so it pays to have them ready. Once you have all ten, the starter recipes table shows what each of these 14 elements does with every other one.
Self-pairs worth trying
An element combined with itself often gives a bigger version of the same idea. To try one, drag the element onto the board, then drag a second copy from your list on top of it. Among the 14 starter elements, every self-pair gives a result, and several are worth knowing:
- Lake + Lake = Ocean
- Steam + Steam = Cloud
- Plant + Plant = Tree
- Dust + Dust = Sand
- Wave + Wave = Tsunami
- Tornado + Tornado = Hurricane
- Mountain + Mountain = Mountain Range
A few loop back instead of moving forward: Volcano + Volcano gives Mountain, and Lava + Lava gives Volcano. Those aren't wasted moves, just a reminder that the game sometimes treats a pair as a cause and its effect.
Reaching your first big element
After the basics, set yourself a target that feels out of reach. Astronaut is a good one: it takes eight combinations, and none of them is hard. Here is the full path, checked in the game:
- Earth + Water = Plant
- Plant + Wind = Dandelion
- Dandelion + Water = Wine
- Wind + Wine = Balloon
- Earth + Wind = Dust
- Dust + Earth = Planet
- Earth + Planet = Moon
- Balloon + Moon = Astronaut
Notice the shape of it. Steps one to four build a Balloon, steps five to seven build a Moon, and the last step joins the two branches. That pattern is everywhere in the game. Leave the Balloon on the board while you work on the Moon, and the final move is right there when you need it. The Astronaut guide also lists what you can make with it next. If eight steps feels like a lot, the Black Hole takes only five.
Keeping the board tidy
A long session leaves the board covered in leftovers. Open Settings and choose Clear the game board. It removes the items lying on the board and nothing else: every element you have discovered stays in your list, ready to be dragged out again. We clear the board before starting each new recipe, so the only things in sight are the ones we're about to use.
The list needs tidying in a different way: it only grows. When it gets long, stop scrolling and type the name you need into the search box. When you just want to browse for ideas, the sort button next to it puts the list in a different order, which often turns up elements you had forgotten about.
Removing elements and starting over
Settings also has Remove elements, a mode where you select elements to delete from your list. It is handy for clearing out results you'll never use, such as a dozen variations of the same joke. Keep in mind that a removed element is gone from your list until you make it again.
Dark mode, sounds and language
The other three options in Settings are simple. Dark mode switches the game to a dark color scheme, which is easier on the eyes in the evening. Sounds turns the game's sound effects on or off. Language changes the interface and the element names; the game offers English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Ukrainian.
On this site, the game opens in the language of the page you are reading, as long as it is one of those ten. Otherwise it starts in English. You can switch at any time under Settings > Language.
How your progress is saved
There is no account and nothing to sign in to. Your discoveries are saved in your browser, on the device you are using. Come back tomorrow in the same browser and your list will be waiting. A different browser or a different device starts fresh, and clearing your browser's site data or storage removes the saved game. Private or incognito windows usually throw their storage away when you close them, so play in a normal window if you want to keep your progress.
When a result surprises you
The same two elements always give the same result in this game. That is what makes step-by-step recipes possible. When you try a pair nobody has tried before, the result is generated by AI the first time and comes with an emoji. Most of these new results make sense; some are odd, and a few are funny. They are all real elements you can keep combining, or remove if you don't want them.
If a step from one of our guides gives you something different, first check that you used the exact element named. Several early elements share an emoji: Lake and Wave both show a wave, Steam and Smoke both show a puff, and Volcano and Lava share the volcano. Using the search box to pick the element by name avoids the mix-up. If the step still doesn't match, tell us which two elements you combined and what you got, and we'll look into it.