A Battle of Wits. Two alchemists battle for supremacy in the transmutation of elements.
The goal of a player is to transmute the most number of spheres to the players metal (silver, gold.) There are 8 spheres arranged in a circle, 4 silver and 4 gold. Each player owns 4 combinations of 3 spheres. There are a total of 8 possible combinations of 3 spheres. For example, gold-silver-gold is one of them. Each turn the player can exchange any two combinations, either between both players combinations or among his or her own combinations. When the player plays the turn, every sphere in the center of each combination will transform to the metal of its owner. If the combination gold-silver-god belongs to the silver player, the sphere will remain silver. If it belongs to the gold player, the sphere will change (transmute) to gold.
If a player is able to transmute all spheres in the board to his or her metal, 8 total, the player will earn a transmute and it will show on a small board to the lower right of the screen. When that happens the spheres on the board will return to the starting configuration, 4 silver and 4 gold and each player will go back to owning 4 combinations.
The transmutes that are accumulated can be used to borrow a combination from the opponent for a turn and then own 5 combinations for a turn. So, it is an advantage to have transmutes since it may provide the player with that power play. Every time the player borrows a combination a transmute is removed from its transmutes board. A particular use of these transmutes is to be able to use them to get another transmute.
There are two main modes of competition: timed or by-score. The timed mode runs with a timer for 120 seconds (2 minutes) and the player with the highest score wins. The by-score mode runs until any of the players reaches 200 points. There is also the possibility of a draw for both modes.
For every turn, the spheres are transmuted to the appropriate metal and then this creates different combinations to be formed in the circle of spheres. Since every player owns only 4 combinations, each player may or may not own an existing combination after each play.