Guide
Co-op, cross-play and versus
Up to four people in one potion shop — online, on one couch, or a mix of the two. Steam and Epic players can share a room from day one.
How many players
Two to four. Local and online seats mix freely: two friends on your couch and two more online is a valid four-player session, because the limit is four seats per shop rather than four PCs.
If you have seen “1–2 players” attached to Alchemess, that came from an early fact sheet and is wrong.
Every mode at a glance
| Mode | Players | Where | Screen | Input | Joining | Progress saves to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single-player | 1 | Local | Full screen | Keyboard & mouse or gamepad | — | Your own shop |
| Online co-op | 2–4 | Online | Full screen on each PC | Keyboard & mouse or gamepad | The host reads out a 6-character room code | The host's shop |
| Couch co-op | 2–4 | Local | Split screen | Player 1 either; players 2–4 one gamepad each | Press a button on a spare controller | Player 1's shop |
| Versus: Sun vs Moon | 2–4 | Online, couch or both | Full or split screen | As above | Room code, then the host picks a side | Not saved — never touches your shop |
Online co-op
The host opens their own shop and the game puts a six-character room code on the HUD. Friends read it out, type it into Main menu → Join, and arrive in the same pile. There is no server browser and no dedicated server: rooms are for people you already know the code of.
Everything happens in the host's shop, and that is where the progress goes. Guests keep their own solo shop untouched — helping a friend finish their Ghosts & Yokai shelf does not fill in yours, and most achievements do not advance for guests either. It is a favour, not a shortcut.
Steam ↔ Epic cross-play
Cross-play works between the Steam and Epic versions on day one, through Epic Online Services. You do not need an Epic account to use it, and the room code is the same six characters on both stores. The host runs a listen server and traffic falls back to a relay, so there is nothing to forward on your router and NAT is not an issue as long as outbound UDP is allowed.
Disconnects, pausing and other honest limits
- If the host leaves, the session ends and guests are returned to the menu with a notice. There is no host migration in version 1.
- There is no rejoin-in-progress: a guest who drops re-enters a code and joins a fresh session.
- Online shops never pause. Solo and couch play pause on the Steam overlay, alt-tab or a controller being unplugged.
- Picking a bottle up and seating it waits one round-trip to the host, so a distant host feels a little heavier than a near one.
Couch co-op and split screen
Press a button on a spare controller and a second player joins on the same screen — side by side for two, a top-favoured split for three and four. It is the same pile and the same shelves, with two to four sets of hands in it.
One thing to check before you buy for a household: players 2 to 4 each need a gamepad. Player 1 can use keyboard and mouse or a pad and can swap between them mid-game, with the on-screen prompts following whichever device they touched last. There is no second keyboard seat. Players 2 and up share player 1's settings and have no menu of their own; the shop belongs to player 1.
Versus: Sun vs Moon
Versus is the one mode with a clock. The shop splits down the middle into two mirrored halves of 13 shelves — 1,040 slots and one identical pile each — and you cannot touch the other side's bottles. Sides are per machine, so a couch shares a side and the online guests take the other, and uneven teams such as 3 v 1 are allowed.
The host picks the win condition in the lobby:
- Tidy your whole half first
- A time limit of 5, 10 or 20 minutes — 10 by default
- A bottle target of 25, 50 or 100
First to the target wins, or whoever has shelved the most correct bottles when the clock runs out. Charms and unlock rewards are switched off in versus, and nothing that happens there touches your solo shop — wins and stats are recorded on the winning machine's account.
A note on Steam Remote Play Together
Native online co-op is the mode to use if you can: each player runs the game, so nobody is uploading video and nobody is playing on a stream. Remote Play Together, where it is available, streams one machine's split screen to a friend instead, which costs the host bandwidth and does not cross stores.
Getting a group together
Alchemess is US$5.99 and launches on 17 September 2026 on Steam and the Epic Games Store, with a 10% discount in launch week. Everyone in a room needs their own copy — one on Steam and one on Epic is fine.