Planet Merge guide: how the drag preview, space and element unlocks work

What this game actually is

Planet Merge is a drag-and-drop puzzle about combining things. You get a few element cards, a small planet that can hold 20 things at once, and one rule: drop a card on empty ground to place it, drop one on top of something already standing there and the two merge into a single new thing.

There is no score, no timer and no way to lose. What you are actually managing is space. The space bar at the top turns amber at 80% and the run ends the moment the twentieth thing is placed. Progress is measured in discoveries, world firsts and the planet's final tier.

Planet MergeDrag element cards onto a tiny planet, merge any two into something new, and be the first in the world to see it.Play free in your browser →

Your first two minutes

The very first run deals you four fixed cards: Fire, Water, Earth and Wind. Drag one onto the globe and it stays there. Drag a second one so it lands on the first and a preview appears above them: A + B = ?. If the result is a preset recipe whose item you have already discovered, the picture fills in. If you have not found it yet, or nobody on Earth has ever merged that pair, you get a question mark and a short wait while the game works it out. That reveal is the whole hook of the game, so do not be shy about merging unfamiliar pairs early.

The preview is your best planning tool

While you drag, the game highlights whichever standing thing is under your finger and shows the merge result above it in three states:

• A + B = [picture] — a preset recipe, and you have already discovered the result. It is free, instant, and costs nothing.
• A + B = ? — either a preset recipe whose result you have not found yet, or a pair nobody has merged anywhere. The difference is invisible until it resolves.
• No preview at all when you hover over empty ground, because nothing is being merged.

The practical consequence: the question mark is not a warning. Early on it is mostly "a preset you have not collected yet", which is exactly what you want. Use it to plan chains several moves ahead instead of merging at random.

Space is the only constraint

Every drop of a card on empty ground takes one of the 20 slots, and every merge gives one back, because two things become one. When the planet is full you cannot place anything new, but you can still merge, and the game tells you so directly.

Finish by arranging what you have rather than by merging to the last slot. The planet's tier at the end is calculated from the sum of the rarity of everything standing on it plus the number of discoveries made in that run: under 22 is Barren Rock, under 34 Oasis, under 46 Civilization, and anything above that is Wonder World. Rare items are worth 3 or 4 on their own, so leaving your best finds sitting on the surface at the end is worth more than squeezing one more merge out of them.

An estimate, since nobody publishes timing here: a full planet is roughly 20 placements plus the merges in between, which lands somewhere around five to ten minutes per planet.

Element unlocks come from your lifetime total, not this run

Twelve base elements exist. You start with four, and the rest open up as your all-time discovery count grows:

Because the counter is lifetime, grinding one planet will not speed it up. What does help is that once you own at least six non-base items, roughly one in five draws is a repeat from your own collection instead of a base element, and those are the only route to the deeper pairs. Whale plus Dream, for example, is a preset combination and Dream is the last element to unlock, so reaching it is a long-term project rather than something you can force in one session.

There are 59 items and 72 preset recipes in the starting set, drawn from those 12 elements. Collecting 50 discoveries in total is treated as finishing the game.

When the AI gets involved

The lookup order for every merge is: preset recipes, then your own local cache of earlier results, then the World Registry of what other players have already merged, and only then the AI. The AI is called only for combinations nobody on Earth has made before, and each device gets 12 of those calls per day.

Past that budget the merge still completes, but you receive a Mystery Crystal instead of a fresh named discovery. Known recipes are unaffected, so a late-session player is not locked out of anything useful.

The 12-call budget is also why the World Registry matters beyond curiosity: results other players have already registered are free for you, forever. If two players merge the same never-seen pair in the same instant, the first one registered decides the result and both receive that one, which keeps the world consistent.

Collections, world firsts and visiting

Open Collection to browse everything you have found, sorted by Nature, Life, Civilization and Wonder, with rarity tags Common, Rare, Epic and Wonder. Each entry remembers the exact two ingredients you used, and the recipe is shown back to you.

World Registry lists discoveries by newest or most made, and shows who made each one first. The first person in the world to create a given item gets a World First reveal, a light column of light on the planet, and a share card.

Finished planets can be shared as a visit link. A friend who opens it sees your planet as it was, plus up to six of your non-base items to take as seeds. A seed you bring home appears as the first card in your tray on your next planet, which is the fastest legitimate way to get a rare ingredient without merging for it.

Common sticking points

• "My planet is full and I cannot place anything." Expected. Merge two standing things; the space bar drops and you can place again.
• "The merge gave me a question mark and then a crystal." You were out of daily AI budget on a genuinely new pair. Known recipes still resolve instantly.
• "My collection says an item exists but I cannot make it." Check the unlock table above. Most gated items simply need a base element you have not earned yet.
• "Dragging does nothing." Tapping a standing thing picks it up once you move more than a few pixels; dragging empty space instead rotates the planet so you can reach the far side.

A reliable routine

1. Merge standing things down to about half the surface before placing anything new.
2. Read the preview on every candidate pair before you let go, and let unknown ones resolve early in the session when your AI budget is full.
3. Hold back your rarest finds for the last few placements so the tier calculation benefits.
4. Finish a planet, share the visit link, and collect a seed or two from a friend's planet before starting the next one.