Home » Play Games » Element Alchemy
Start with the four basics: Air, Earth, Fire and Water.
Gold FINAL tags mark elements that lead nowhere new · Hints cost 30 points · Every 25 discoveries earns +1 hint
A little alchemy game you can play right here, free, with 542 discoveries waiting. This is Element Alchemy, an original GameOLL discovery game. You start with just four basic elements: Air, Earth, Fire and Water. Mix any two and the world starts to unfold. Fire and Water make Steam. Steam and Air make a Cloud. Keep mixing and you will build everything from mud and metal to dragons, robots and the Internet itself.
Every discovery earns points, and deeper discoveries pay more. Chase the Daily Discovery target to build a streak, spend points on hints when you are stuck, and watch your library grow across twelve shelves of elements. There is no timer and no way to lose. There is only the next idea. No download. No sign-up. Just you and the four basics.
Genre
Puzzle · Discovery
Players
1 Player
Platform
Browser · Mobile · PC
Price
Free
In this guide
- How to play
- How discovery and scoring work
- Starter recipes to try first
- The twelve shelves of the library
- Daily Discovery and hints
- 7 tips for master alchemists
- Element Alchemy FAQ
- Final verdict
How to play Element Alchemy
The whole game is one simple, satisfying loop: pick two things, mix them, and see what the world gives back.
- Press Start Mixing. Your library opens with the four basic elements: Air, Earth, Fire and Water. Everything else in the game is hiding inside combinations of things you already own.
- Tap any element in your library to place it in the first mixing slot. Tap a second element to fill the second slot. An element can be mixed with itself, so Water and Water is a fair experiment. Tap a filled slot to empty it again.
- Press Combine. If the pair works, the result appears with its story, the element joins your library, and you earn points. If the pair does nothing, the game tells you so, and it costs you nothing at all.
- Keep an eye on the gold FINAL tags. A final element never appears in any recipe, so it is a beautiful dead end: collect it, admire it, and move on. Elements without the tag still have secrets to give.
- Use the search box and the shelf tabs to find elements fast once your library grows. Your progress, score and streak save automatically in your browser, so you can leave mid-experiment and come back days later.
Controls for phone and PC
| Action | Phone / tablet | PC / laptop |
|---|---|---|
| Place an element in a slot | Tap the element tile | Click the element tile |
| Empty a slot | Tap the filled slot | Click the filled slot |
| Mix the pair | Tap Combine | Click Combine |
| Ask for a hint | Tap Hint (30 pts) | Click Hint (30 pts) |
| Find an element fast | Type in the search box | Type in the search box |
| Sound on or off | Tap the speaker button | Click the speaker button |
How discovery and scoring work
Every element sits at a depth: how many mixing steps it is away from the four basics. Steam is depth 1, because Fire and Water are both basics. A Cloud is depth 2, because Steam is depth 1. The deeper an element hides, the more it pays when you find it. Finding an element again pays nothing, so your score is an honest record of first-time discoveries.
| Discovery depth | Points | Feels like |
|---|---|---|
| Depth 1 | 10 | Two basics collide: Steam, Mud, Energy |
| Depth 2 | 20 | The world warms up: Clouds, Stone, Life |
| Depth 3 | 30 | Materials and creatures: Metal, Birds, Flowers |
| Depth 4 | 45 | Things get useful: Glass, Trees, Bread basics |
| Depth 5 | 70 | Civilisation stirs: Houses, Boats, Cheese |
| Depth 6 | 100 | Real inventions: Books, Tools, Engines |
| Depth 7 | 150 | People and professions appear |
| Depth 8 | 200 | Legends, cities and big ideas |
| Depth 9 and beyond | 250 to 300 | The rarest corners of the library |
Two bonuses sit on top. Finishing the Daily Discovery pays +50 points, and finding all 542 elements pays a one-time +500 completion bonus and the Master Alchemist celebration. Your Best is simply the largest library you have ever built, and it is saved even if you reset your progress to play a fresh run.
Starter recipes to try first
New alchemists often ask where to begin. These six honest starters will open the world up. After them, the library is yours to explore, and we are not spoiling the other 532.
| Mix this | With this | To discover | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fire | Water | Steam | Opens the whole sky shelf |
| Earth | Water | Mud | The road to bricks, swamps and Life itself |
| Air | Fire | Energy | Powers everything from Lightning to Magic |
| Water | Water | Lake | Leads to seas, rivers and rain-fed farms |
| Steam | Air | Cloud | Your first depth 2 discovery |
| Earth | Rain | Plant | Every green thing grows from here |
The twelve shelves of the library
Your discoveries are shelved into twelve collections, and the shelf tabs in the game always show how many you hold on each. The counts below are the real sizes of the bank in this release, so you can plan your hunt shelf by shelf.
| Shelf | Elements | What lives there |
|---|---|---|
| Air and Sky | 24 | Wind, clouds, storms, the Sun and the stars |
| Earth and Stone | 28 | Stone, metals, gems and the deep ground |
| Water and Ice | 24 | Rain, rivers, seas, ice and snow |
| Fire and Energy | 16 | Flames, lightning, electricity and explosions |
| Plants and Wild Nature | 64 | Everything green, from seeds to jungles |
| Animals and Life | 72 | Every creature, from bacteria to elephants |
| Food and Drink | 40 | Bread, cheese, feasts and things that bubble |
| Tools and Craft | 93 | The biggest shelf: every made thing, wheel to robot |
| Home and Building | 46 | Houses, castles, furniture and warm fireplaces |
| Places and the World | 39 | Mountains, islands, villages and whole continents |
| People and Society | 53 | Humans, jobs, families, music and the Internet |
| Fantasy and Ideas | 43 | Dragons, wizards, wishes and other impossibilities |
| Total | 542 | Four basics plus 538 discoveries |
Daily Discovery and hints
Every day, the banner above the mixing slots names a Daily target: one element of depth 2 to 5, the same for every player that day. Discover it and you earn +50 bonus points and grow your daily streak. Already own it? Re-create it by mixing its recipe again, and the day still counts. Miss a day and the streak starts again, but your best streak is kept forever. The target is always something a growing library can reach, never a depth 9 monster.
Stuck? The Hint button costs 30 points and names one real pair you can already make: two elements in your library whose combination you have not tried yet. It never wastes your points on a guess. You start with 3 hints, and every 25 discoveries earns one more, so steady mixing keeps the hints flowing exactly when the library gets big enough to need them.
7 tips for master alchemists
- Mix everything with the basics first. Air, Earth, Fire and Water react with a surprising share of the library. When a new element lands, run it past all four before trying anything fancy.
- Double up without fear. Some of the best discoveries come from mixing an element with itself: Water and Water, Stone and Stone, Paper and Paper. If it feels silly, it is probably a recipe.
- Think like the world, not like a word list. Recipes follow common-sense logic: what is it made of, where does it live, what does it eat, what is it used for? Ask those four questions about the element you want, and the pair usually suggests itself.
- Work a shelf at a time. Filling one collection, like Food and Drink, teaches you the ingredient families that unlock the next one. Bread is never just bread: it is a stepping stone.
- Respect the FINAL tags. A gold FINAL element is a trophy, not a tool. Stop feeding it partners and spend your experiments on elements that still have children hiding inside them.
- Save hints for real walls. A hint at 40 discoveries is trivia; a hint at 400 discoveries, aimed at a pair hiding in a huge library, is gold. Let the stock grow with your milestones.
- Let the Daily choose your direction. The daily target quietly teaches you a new recipe chain every day. Even on days you only play for two minutes, finish the target and protect the streak.
Is Element Alchemy free and safe to play?
Yes. The game is free. It runs fully inside this page. It asks for no name, no email and no account. It installs nothing on your device. Your library, score and streaks stay in your browser only, and the Reset button in the menu wipes them whenever you want a clean start.
Element Alchemy is an original game made by GameOLL. The whole bank of 542 elements and every recipe in it were written by our team for this game, checked by a solver that proves every single element can actually be reached from the four basics. If you find a pair you think should combine and does not, tell us in the comments and we will consider it for the next version.
More games and guides on GameOLL
- Want every game in one place? Visit our Play Games page.
- Love sorting words into hidden groups? Play Word Groups, our connections game.
- Prefer daily numbers to daily elements? Try Daily Equation, our nerdle game.
- Place queens with pure logic in Queens Logic.
- Balance suns and moons in Sun and Moon Tango.
- Take the classic number grid challenge with Sudoku Master, our sudoku game.
Element Alchemy FAQ
Is Element Alchemy free to play?
Yes. Element Alchemy is 100% free. You play it right on this page, with all 542 elements, the Daily Discovery and the full hint system. There is no download, no sign-up and no payment.
How many elements are there to discover?
There are 542 elements in total: the 4 basics you start with (Air, Earth, Fire and Water) and 538 discoveries. They are shelved into twelve collections, from 16 in Fire and Energy up to 93 in Tools and Craft. Every element has exactly one recipe, and a solver has proven that every element can be reached from the four basics.
Is Element Alchemy the same as Little Alchemy?
No. Element Alchemy is an original game made by GameOLL, with its own bank of 542 elements, its own recipes, its own scoring and its own daily challenge. It plays in the style of a little alchemy game, mixing two things to discover a third, but it is not affiliated with Little Alchemy or its makers, and none of its content comes from their game.
How do hints work?
A hint costs 30 points and names one pair of elements already in your library that combines into something you have not found yet. You start with 3 hints, and every 25 discoveries earns 1 more. A hint never points at a pair you cannot make right now.
How does the Daily Discovery work?
Each day names one target element of depth 2 to 5, the same for everyone. Discover it that day, or re-create it if you already own it, to earn a +50 point bonus and grow your streak. Miss a day and the streak resets to zero, but your best streak is saved in your browser.
Can I play Element Alchemy on my phone?
Yes. The mixing workspace and library are built for portrait phone screens: tap tiles to fill the slots and tap Combine to mix. It also works with a mouse on laptops and desktop PCs, and your library, score and streak save automatically in your browser.
Final verdict: should you play Element Alchemy?
Yes — if you love the quiet thrill of one more idea. Element Alchemy takes the purest loop in puzzle gaming, two things in and a discovery out, and gives it real depth: 542 hand-written elements, honest scoring that rewards deep thinking, a daily target worth protecting, and hints that respect your points. There is no clock, no lives and no losing. There is just a library with your name on it, waiting to be filled. Start with Fire and Water. See how far the ripples go.
▶ Play Element Alchemy 🎮 See All Free GamesLast updated: November 5, 2026. Element Alchemy v1.0 — the first release of our original discovery game, with a hand-authored bank of 542 elements across twelve shelves, depth-based scoring, a Daily Discovery target with streaks, a milestone hint system and a +500 completion bonus for finding everything. An original GameOLL browser game. Found a bug? Tell us in the comments and we will fix it in the next version.
