Little Alchemy 2 Starter Path: From Four Elements to Life, Human and Time

Little Alchemy 2 gives you air, earth, fire and water and no instructions. You can poke at it at random for an hour, or you can follow the spine of the recipe tree, which gets you to the items that unlock everything else in about forty moves. Here is that spine, checked against the game's own recipe data.

Double the basics

The fastest early discoveries are an item combined with itself. Air + air is pressure, fire + fire is energy, water + water is a puddle and earth + earth is land. Keep going up each ladder: puddle + puddle is a pond, pond + pond a lake, lake + lake a sea, sea + sea an ocean; land + land is a continent and continent + continent a planet. That is a dozen items from four, and the water ladder is needed for life.

The mineral branch

Fire + earth is lava. Lava + air is stone, stone + air is sand, sand + fire is glass. Earth + water is mud, mud + sand is clay, clay + fire is brick, brick + brick is a wall, wall + wall is a house. Two houses make a village, house + sky makes a skyscraper, and two skyscrapers make a city.

Weather

Water + air is mist, air + planet is atmosphere, mist + atmosphere is a cloud, cloud + water is rain and cloud + air is sky. Air + pressure is wind, cloud + cloud is a storm, storm + storm a tornado. Fire + sky is the sun, sky + stone the moon.

Life and human

You need primordial soup: lava + ocean, or earth + sea. Then primordial soup + storm (or + volcano, + time, + electricity) is life. Ocean + electricity is a shortcut if you already have electricity. From life: life + land is animal, life + clay is human, earth + life is soil. Human is the busiest item in the game — it goes into 83 recipes — so the moment you have it, run it against everything in the library.

Tools and metal

Metal is fire + stone, and it also appears on its own once you have found 50 items. Metal + human is a tool, tree + tool is wood. The first plant is soil + life or soil + rain (soil is earth + life); plant + time or plant + big is a tree, two trees are a forest, and fire + wood is a campfire, which with a human makes a story — the start of the legend and myth branch. Tools plus animals give humans too, which is the way the game hints at it.

The counters

Some items are not made, they are earned. Time arrives at 100 discoveries, Big, Science and Philosophy at 150, Container at 300. Time is worth rushing: time + animal is human, time + milk is cheese, time + flower is a seed, and a great many later items need it. If a recipe from a wiki refuses to work, count your library first.