PhialA Markolana game
Coming soon to the App Store · iPhone

Phial A cozy alchemy puzzle game

You are the apprentice in a dusty apothecary. Pour coloured liquids between glass vials to sort them - and then discover that the colours react, so the ones you need are the ones you make. 105 puzzles across five rooms that fill up as you work.

One email on the day it reaches the App Store. Nothing else.

Watch it play
  • One purchase
  • No ads
  • Play offline
Phial on iPhone: the level First Spark. Red and Blue liquid sit layered in glass test tubes on a wooden shelf in a candlelit apothecary, with a goal row showing Red, Blue and a Purple target.
105
Puzzles
17
Free to play
5
Rooms to fill
0
Ads, ever
The idea

Sorting is where it starts, not where it ends

Pour

Tap a vial, then another

Liquid runs from one glass into the next, a drop at a time, and settles in bands. One colour per vial and the shelf is done. That much you already know how to do.

React

Some colours refuse to stack

Pour Red onto Blue and it does not sit on top - it sparks, and you have Purple. Six colours grow out of three, which means the vial you need can be made rather than found.

Reason

Sparks are the real budget

Every mix costs a spark, and most boards give you barely enough. The puzzle is not which vial to empty; it is which reactions you can afford and in which order.

Twelve seconds

This is the game running, not a trailer

Captured straight off an iPhone with nothing cut. The liquid, the glass and the light are drawn by Metal shaders rather than stacked gradients, so a full vial has depth down its whole column and catches the lamp on the wall of the glass.

A pour is a sequence, not a state change: it resolves one drop at a time, and when a reaction sets off another reaction the chain plays out beat by beat instead of snapping to the answer.

Five rooms

The shop grows as you work

Each chapter is a room in the apothecary, and each room brings one new rule that changes what a board can hide from you. Rooms also fill in as you solve them - bare shelves become stocked ones - so progress is something you can see rather than a percentage.

Ch. 1The Back Room FreeSorting and the first reactions17 levels
Ch. 2The Shopfront Cloudy glass22 levels
Ch. 3The Mark Wax seals22 levels
Ch. 4The Cellar Silver and mixed vial sizes22 levels
Ch. 5The Still Room The Still, splitting colours apart22 levels

Plus 5 Master’s Trials - one bonus puzzle per room, unlocked with stars rather than progress. The first one is in the free chapter.

Screenshots

Every room, and what it adds

Chapter 2 of Phial: seven vials on two shelves in a lamplit shop, one with a dark cloudy band whose own colour cannot be read until the layers above it are gone.
Cloudy glass Chapter 2. A band you cannot read until the layers above it are gone - and the level guarantees it is deducible.
Chapter 3 of Phial: three vials of layered Red, Blue and Yellow liquid and two empty ones, in a bright room with an arched window and a framed mirror, above a goal row whose last colour is a question mark.
One spark to spend Chapter 3. The goal row shows a colour as a question mark: you have to work out what it is and then make it.
Chapter 4 of Phial: vials of layered Red, Blue and Yellow liquid in a stone cellar lit by a hanging lantern, two of them with a pale Silver band at the bottom.
Silver Chapter 4. Silver copies the first colour it touches, for free - a wildcard that costs no spark.
Chapter 5 of Phial: a copper still beside a fireplace, two vials of layered Orange and Purple liquid, and an order row asking for a filled Red vial and a filled Blue one.
The Still Chapter 5. The order wants Red and Blue off a shelf of Orange and Purple, so the Still has to split a mixed colour back into the two that made it.
The Daily Order in Phial, dated September 14: nine vials of different heights on two shelves, two sealed under red wax, two with a clouded band, one with a Silver band and one a Still, above an order to fill a whole vial with Red and another with Blue.
The Daily Order One generated puzzle a day, machine-proven solvable like every other board, with a streak to keep.
Phial's chapter menu: today's Daily Order card above painterly cards for The Back Room, The Shopfront and The Mark, each at its final room stage with a star count.
Five rooms The shelf you return to. Rooms change state as you fill them, and the art is earned rather than shown up front.
A recipe page in Phial's journal on aged parchment: three small vials showing Red plus Blue makes Purple, a note that each mixing pour costs one spark, and what the Still does to a mixed drop.
The journal Ink appears only for what you have actually seen happen. Nothing is spoiled by a table of recipes you have not earned.
Phial win screen: the level Careful Now solved with three gold stars for solved, quick solve in seven moves, and steady hand with no undo.
Three stars Solved, solved at par, and solved without an undo. The third star is the one that makes you replay a board.
Why it is different

Everything this genre gets one-star reviews for, removed

Sort puzzles are full of games engineered to make you fail and then sell you the way out. Phial is built as the opposite of each specific complaint - and this is not marketing, it is what the code does or does not contain.

  • An advert after every mistake - and a purchase to stop them.

    No advertising code in the app at all.

  • Boards engineered to be unwinnable, so a booster looks necessary.

    Every board proved solvable by the solver that ships in the app.

  • Hints metered, then sold in packs.

    Unlimited hints, from the same solver that proved the board.

  • The board reshuffles when you retry, so no plan survives it.

    Reset returns the board you just lost, unchanged.

  • Coins, lives, energy timers and a season pass.

    17 levels free, then $1.99 once. Nothing else, ever.

  • An account, a server, and an SDK watching you play.

    No account, no server, no analytics. Works in airplane mode.

Accessibility

Built to be playable, not merely compliant

A puzzle game about colour has an obvious problem, so every liquid carries its own symbol - a sun, a moon, a drop, a star - stamped on every band. Colour is never the only thing telling you what is in a vial.

  • VoiceOver throughout, including the board: each vial reads out its contents, and pours are announced.
  • Dynamic Type to the largest accessibility sizes. Several screens change arrangement rather than shrinking text, and the layouts are tested on a phone as small as an iPhone SE.
  • Reduce Motion is honoured, both the system setting and an in-app one.
  • Haptics for pours, reactions and refusals, and they can be turned off.
  • No timers and no failure state. Nothing in the game requires speed or punishes a wrong move beyond an undo.
What it costs

Free to start, $1.99 for the rest

Phial is a free download. Chapter 1 - 17 levels and the first Master’s Trial - is the whole game in miniature: the sorting, the reactions, the spark budget, the journal, the stars, and a real ending. Play all of it and decide afterwards.

One in-app purchase, $1.99 in the United States and the local equivalent elsewhere, unlocks the remaining 88 levels, four more rooms, the four later mechanics, and the harder tiers of the Daily Order. It is a permanent unlock tied to your Apple Account, restorable on any device you own.

There is no second purchase. No coins, no hint packs, no lives, no removal-of-ads upsell for ads that were never there. If more chapters are ever made, people who already bought the game get them.

One email on the day it reaches the App Store. Nothing else.

Questions and support
Questions

The things people ask first

Does Phial have ads?

No. There is no advertising of any kind - no interstitials between levels, no banner, and no rewarded video for a hint or an extra vial. There is also no analytics or tracking code in the app.

How much of the game is free?

Chapter 1 is free and complete: 17 puzzles, plus the first Master's Trial. One in-app purchase ($1.99 in the US) unlocks the remaining 88 levels across four more rooms. There is nothing else to buy, ever.

Can a level be impossible?

No. Every level in the game has been solved by the same solver that ships inside the app, and its optimal move count is what the game shows you as par. A puzzle that the solver cannot prove does not get into the build.

Are hints limited?

No. Hints and undo are unlimited and free. The solver runs on your device, so when it can finish the search a hint is the provably best next move, and on the densest boards it gives you a strong one rather than making you wait.

Does the board change when I retry?

Never. Reset gives you the same board you just failed, so a plan you worked out is still worth something. Boards are authored and fixed, not shuffled on each attempt.

Does Phial work offline?

Completely. There is no account, no login and no server. Everything - the puzzles, the solver behind the hints, and the daily puzzle - runs on your phone. Airplane mode changes nothing.

Will my progress move to a new phone?

Yes, through iCloud. Stars, discoveries, your current level and your daily streak sync through your own iCloud account, so a new phone picks up where the old one stopped. The developer cannot see any of it.

Is Phial another water sort puzzle?

It starts from the same pouring gesture, and then it is a different game. Colours react with each other, so you make the colours you need instead of only separating what you were given; cloudy glass hides what is underneath; wax seals let a vial pour out but never in; and a Still splits a mixed colour back apart. The campaign is finite and authored rather than thousands of generated boards.

What do I need to play?

An iPhone running iOS 18.0 or later. There is no iPad version today; one is planned as its own release, with no date yet.

When is it out?

Phial is finished and in pre-release testing. Release is targeted for October 2026, and this page carries the App Store link on the day. Leave an email address at the top of this page and you get one message when it is out.

Anything else is answered on the support page, or by writing to support@markolana.com.