You start with four elements: fire, water, earth and air. Click one element, then click a second one, and the two combine on the board. If the pair has a recipe, a new element appears between them. If it does not, you just get a small puff, so try another pair.
Every new element you discover joins your collection in the sidebar, and you can use it in the next combination. Lava plus water makes stone, steam plus wind makes a cloud, and many elements work doubled up. The game has 257 built-in recipes, from simple pairs to chains that take several steps to reach.
There is no timer and no way to lose. Use the Clear board button when the board gets crowded; it only removes the elements on the board, and your sidebar collection stays untouched. Reloading the page starts you over with the four basic elements.
The board is your workspace. Click an element in the sidebar to place it on the board, then click two elements to combine them. When a pair has a recipe, the two ingredients disappear and the result pops up between them, with a First Discovery badge if it is new. When a pair has no recipe, you only get a small puff, and both elements stay where they are, so a wrong guess costs nothing.
Order does not matter. Water plus fire gives the same result as fire plus water, so you never have to remember which one you clicked first. Doubling is always worth a try, since many elements combine with themselves, and a pair you already tried will always give the same answer. The counter in the sidebar only moves when you discover something new.
The 257 recipes are built in layers. The first layer comes straight from the four starters: water plus fire makes steam, fire plus earth makes lava, wind plus earth makes dust, water plus earth makes a plant, and earth plus earth makes a mountain. Every new element can be combined again.
A lake plus a lake makes an ocean, steam plus wind makes a cloud, and a cloud plus water makes rain. Fire plus stone makes metal, and fire plus metal makes steel. Water plus earth makes a plant, a plant plus earth makes a tree, and a tree plus a tree makes a forest. Once you see the pattern, you can guess the next step before you try it.
The results fall into loose families: nature, like forests and volcanoes, places that grow from houses into towns and cities, people and their world, like humans, love, and kings, and technology that climbs from computers to the internet, AI, and robots. Fantasy sits alongside all of it, with dragons, wizards, and magic, and the most surprising results come from mixing families.
Water is the friendliest starter. Double it for a lake, double the lake for an ocean, and mix water with fire for steam, then steam with wind for a cloud and the cloud with water for rain. Sand plus water makes a beach and a mountain plus rain makes snow.
Fire is the workshop starter. Fire plus earth makes lava, lava plus water makes stone, fire plus stone makes metal, and fire plus metal makes steel, the backbone of tools, swords, cars, and rockets later on. Fire plus sand makes glass and fire plus wind makes smoke. Whenever you need a material rather than a place, fire is usually the way in.
Earth is the slow builder. Double it for a mountain, then mix it with water for a plant, the plant with earth for a tree, and the tree with itself for a forest. Wind plus earth makes dust, dust plus wind makes sand, and sand plus sand makes a desert. Its chains are short and the results feed straight into the fire and water chains.
Wind is the mischief starter. Double it for a tornado, mix it with water for a wave, and mix the wave with wind again for surf. Wind plus earth makes dust, and dust is the start of the whole sand and desert chain. Wind also lifts steam into a cloud. When you are stuck, wind is the best element to throw at things.
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