The Alchemist's Puzzle - A Sigmar's Garden

Goal

Clear the board. For a marble to be removed, it must be paired with another suitable marble, and it must have at least three contiguous free sides. Neighbors off the board count as free sides.

Starting position

4 elements, each with 8 marbles: Earth (🜃), Water (🜄), Air (🜁), and Fire (🜂)
4 Salt (🜔) marbles
5 base metals and 1 Gold (☉) marble
5 Quicksilver (☿) marbles
4 pairs of Vitae (↑, Life) and Mors (↓, Death)

Reaction rules

Earth (🜃), Water (🜄), Air (🜁), and Fire (🜂) elements react with marbles of the same type, or with Salt (🜔)
Salt (🜔) reacts with the four elements, or with itself
Vitae (↑) reacts only with Mors (↓)
Base metals react with Quicksilver (☿), but they must be removed in the strict sequential order shown below
Gold (☉) is removed by itself, but first, all base metals must be removed

Metal removal sequence

Quicksilver (☿) + Lead (♄)
Quicksilver (☿) + Tin (♃)
Quicksilver (☿) + Iron (♂)
Quicksilver (☿) + Copper (♀)
Quicksilver (☿) + Silver (☽)
Gold (☉)

Sigmar's Garden

This program reproduces the rules of the mini-game Sigmar's Garden from the game Opus Magnum by Zachtronics, featuring original graphics and puzzles.

Tips

If you get stuck on a puzzle, don't hesitate to skip it and try another. The built-in collection contains medium and hard puzzles in no particular order. Over time, you may develop an intuition for which board patterns feel easier or harder than others.

Select and pair marbles

Left-click a marble, then left-click another

Cancel selection

Click the selected marble again, or click elsewhere

Pair marbles by drag-and-drop

Left-click a marble and drag it onto another

Automatic pairing

Right-click a marble

Restart puzzle

Middle-click (press mouse wheel)

Undo last move

Mouse wheel down*

Redo next move

Mouse wheel up*

* Mouse wheel undo/redo direction can be configured in "Settings" on the "More" tab.

Restart puzzle

Home / Esc / H

Undo last move

Del / Backspace / U

Redo next move

Ins / R

Redo all moves

End / E

Previous puzzle

Ctrl + Left arrow

Next puzzle

Ctrl + Right arrow

Previous unsolved puzzle

Ctrl + Shift + Left arrow

Next unsolved puzzle

Ctrl + Shift + Right arrow

Open puzzle file

O

Save puzzles to file

Ctrl + S

Import puzzles from clipboard

Ctrl + V

Copy puzzles to clipboard

Ctrl + C

Copy current puzzle to clipboard

Shift + Ctrl + C

Make new puzzle

N

Solve puzzle

S

Settings

Font:

Mouse wheel up: Redo Undo

Inactive pieces symbol color tint: 0%

Import / Export Utilities

Export loaded puzzles

Export all recorded solutions

Import solutions

Acknowledgements

This project would not exist without Yaron Shoham. From the very beginning, when he introduced me to Sigmar’s Garden, his enthusiasm and insights drove the entire venture.

Beyond bringing the initial spark, Yaron’s technical contributions were pivotal. To name a few, it was his idea to estimate puzzle difficulty by using Monte Carlo-style random walks, and his deadlock detection algorithms practically doubled the speed of the solver.

Equally invaluable were his user-interface nudges, and his constant feedback shaped the program into the polished, cohesive experience it is today.

Above all, the exchange of ideas, experiments, and friendly collaboration were what made building this program truly rewarding. Thank you, Yaron.

License

The Alchemist's Puzzle - A Sigmar's Garden–Style Solitaire Game

Version 2026-08-28

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.