The Catalyst

t = 0 · about to begin

Make everything that ever happened.

Start with the Big Bang. Put two sparks together and the Pull comes out. Keep going, and you make stars, seas, the first cell, bread, the printing press, a mind across the galaxy — every single thing that came after, in order.

Play free in your browser Get it on Android

No account, nothing to install. Your runs are saved on your own phone or computer.

  • 22acts
  • 110levels
  • 582things to make
  • 13.8billion years

One coin at a time, through the middle

A ring of coins, and a catalyst at its centre. Nothing joins by itself — every reaction goes through the slot in the middle. Three moves, and you know the whole game.

  1. A spark loaded in the centre of the ring, ready to drag out

    1Load

    Pick a coin from your hand, or pull one in off the ring. It sits in the centre, hot and ready.

  2. An arrow from the centre to two coins, lit green

    2Aim

    Drag out past the green ring. An arrow follows your finger, and whatever it will join with lights up.

  3. The card for a new epoch: What Holds a Sentence, 2,500 years ago

    3Let go

    It fires. If the recipe is right, something new is on the ring — and when you make what the epoch is waiting for, time moves on.

Fill the ring and you lose a life, never what you built. Stuck? The ? shows you the way. Level 0 teaches the whole game in a couple of minutes, and Easy forgives a wrong guess.

Twenty-two acts, from the first second to the far future

The universe is twenty minutes old by the end of the first act. The last one is nearly five thousand years from now. Every act opens with a card saying where you are, and when.

  1. 01H₂First Light0 – 20 min
  2. 02Starfire380,000 yr
  3. 03Warm Ponds4.5 bn yr ago
  4. 04The Long Alone3.5 bn yr ago
  5. 05Bodies800 m yr ago
  6. 06Land470 m yr ago
  7. 07Minds66 m yr ago
  8. 08The Long Walk70,000 yr ago
  9. 09Harvest11,000 yr ago
  10. 10Milk and Bone7,000 yr ago
  11. 11Surplus5,500 yr ago
  12. 12Iron and Ink5,000 yr ago
  13. 13The Crossing550 yr ago
  14. 14Smoke260 yr ago
  15. 15Small Things350 yr ago
  16. 16The Wars110 yr ago
  17. 17The Wire80 yr ago
  18. 18The Made Minda few years on
  19. 19The Long Call60 years on
  20. 20The Cargo4,411 years on
  21. 21The Garden4,433 years on
  22. 22The Quiet4,800 years on

← scroll →

Every coin is something the world had to make first

Tap any coin in the game and it tells you what it is and what it goes into. Every one is drawn twice: simple pictures with simple words, or the scientific ones.

  • HHydrogen
  • First star
  • Sun-like star
  • Rocky planet
  • H₂OOcean
  • LUCA
  • Alga
  • Trilobite
  • First vertebrate
  • Archaeopteris
  • Dinosaur
  • Mammal
  • C + O₂Controlled fire
  • Language
  • The bow
  • The dog
  • Domesticated wheat
  • Leavened bread
  • The wheel
  • Cu + SnBronze
  • The alphabet
  • The printing press
  • The caravel
  • The potato
  • The steam engine
  • The locomotive
  • The vaccine
  • β-lactamPenicillin
  • Radio
  • SiThe transistor
  • The satellite
  • The reusable rocket
  • D+TFusion power
  • A Dyson swarm
  • The aerial
  • A mind across the galaxy

Thirty-six of the 582. The rest are in the game, in the order the universe made them.

Play it anywhere

The same game, the same saves, on anything with a screen.

  • In your browser

    On a phone, a tablet or a computer. Nothing to install; your three save slots stay in that browser.

    Play now

  • On Android

    1. Download catalyst.apk (under 1 MB).
    2. Open it. Your phone asks whether this browser may install apps — allow it.
    3. It opens the game full screen, keeps your runs, and updates by itself.
    Download the app

    Coming to Google Play.

  • On iPhone or iPad

    Open the game in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. It opens full screen from there, like an app.

Something odd? Press BUG in the game, or write to support@thecatalystgame.com.