Little Alchemy is an online world-building game based on the popular 1997 DOS Alchemy game. It was originally released in 2010 after another version called Doodle God. The player must use four elements that early scientists (alchemists) once believed were the basic building blocks of all life to create more than 500 normal and hidden elements.
The player starts by combining the initial blocks (air, earth, fire and water) represented by icons and text in a storage column to the right of a workspace. For example, they can combine one element with another, such as air and earth (air+earth) to create dust or fire and water (fire+water) to create steam. They can also combine the same element, such as air+air to create pressure and water+water to create sea.
Little Alchemy displays the number of created elements and the total possible number at the bottom left corner of the workspace. This version starts with 4/560. In the Settings area, found by selecting the hamburger icon at the bottom right corner of the workspace, the player can turn off these displayed numbers. They can also hide the names of the elements and turn on Night mode.
The player earns achievements as well. They receive credit every time they reach a creation milestone, such as creating a specific number of elements and discovering hidden elements.
