Almost Infinite

The pitch

Almost Infinite is a calm crafting and discovery game. You start with four elements (Fire, Water, Earth and Wind) and combine them into new ones. Fire and Water make Steam, and a few steps later you're making volcanoes, dragons, galaxies and microwaves. There are more than 23,000 things to discover. Every combination is fixed, so the same pair always gives the same result and there's always something new to find. Some discoveries are Relics: final forms that can't be combined any further. Collect them all, if you can. Works offline, saves your progress, and plays in any browser on desktop or mobile.

Controls & how it runs

Drag elements from your inventory onto the table, then drop one card onto another to combine them. If the pair makes something, you get a new card; anything you haven't found before goes into your inventory. Some pairs make nothing, so try another. Use search to find a card, and sort your inventory by when it was found or by depth. The Relics filter shows the final forms you've collected. Undo takes back your last move, and Clear Table tidies up. Stuck? Tap Hint and watch a short ad to see a pair you haven't tried yet that makes something new. Controls: mouse or touch, drag and drop.

Getting a run going takes exactly one press: Press start, up top, and the game boots inside this page — nothing downloads in the background and no form wants your details before the first jump. The cabinet is drawn for a flexible screen and listens to mouse, keyboard or touch, whichever the game prefers. It reshapes itself for tall and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all get the full picture. Given a fullscreen button, use it — scores look better at full size, that's just science.

Pro tips for arcade cabinets

• Treat your first run as a scouting mission. Arcade cabinets hide their cruelty in the second minute, not the first — learn where the difficulty spikes before you start chasing numbers.
• Small scores compound. Grab the easy pickups on every pass instead of gambling the whole run on one heroic line; heroes respawn, banked points don't evaporate.
• Watch the edges of the screen. In classic arcade design the next problem almost always enters from somewhere you weren't looking — build the habit of scanning the borders.

Almost Infinite — quick-fire questions

Does Almost Infinite cost anything to play?

Not a token. The cabinet is free from the first run to the five-hundredth — no wallet, no sign-up, no toll booth hiding three levels in. The adverts around the page are what keep the floor's lights on.

What sort of game is Almost Infinite?

It stands on our Arcade row — that's the family it plays most like. The pitch above is the publisher's own rundown of what it throws at you and what it hands back.

Can I play Almost Infinite on my phone?

Happily, yes. It runs inside the browser on phones and tablets the same way it does on a computer. It reshapes itself for tall and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all get the full picture.

Do I need to install anything first?

Nothing whatsoever. Almost Infinite is an HTML5 game: hit the start button and it boots on this page, and shutting the tab sweeps the cabinet clean behind you.

Before you wander off

Personal best banked, or still chasing it? Either way the full Arcade row is powered on and waiting — The main floor: 415 cabinets of pure arcade stock — the quick, the loud and the gloriously unfair. If it beeps, flashes and dares you to beat a number, it lives on this row.