All 26 shelves, and where 2,080 bottles come from

The arithmetic

There are 260 potion names, each written by hand. Each name exists in eight vessel types — an Elixir of the Lich Who Just Wants a Hug and a Tonic of the Lich Who Just Wants a Hug are two different bottles that share a name. That is where the headline number comes from:

260 names × 8 vessels = 2,080 bottles, each with its own printed label, numbered No 1 to No 2080.

The shelves meet that number exactly. Twenty-six shelves of eighty slots — ten columns across, eight rows down — is 26 × 80 = 2,080 slots. Every bottle in the shop has precisely one place to be, and when the floor is empty the wall is full.

Two numbers that circulate in older material are wrong and should not be repeated: the game does not have 2,048 potions, and it does not have 256 colours. Both come from an early design document.

How a shelf is laid out

A shelf holds ten names. Each name owns one column, and the eight rows of that column are the eight vessel types in alphabetical order. So the shelf is a grid you can read: the theme picks the shelf, the name picks the column, and the vessel word — the drop cap at the start of the label — picks the row.

That last read is the sorting game. Everything else is walking.

The eight vessel types

Alphabetical, which is also top to bottom on every shelf in the shop:

1. Ambrosia
2. Brew
3. Concoction
4. Elixir
5. Potion
6. Remedy
7. Serum
8. Tonic

The 26 shelves

Twenty-four are lettered Alpha to Omega. The last two are the Sun shelf in gold and the Moon shelf in silver — so the correct phrasing is “26 shelves: Alpha to Omega, plus Sun and Moon”, never “26 shelves lettered Alpha to Omega plus Sun and Moon”, which counts the same shelves twice.

Shelf titles are given here in English. The game itself is localised, so the shelf you see in your language may read differently on screen.

Sun and Moon

The two unlettered shelves are the ones the versus mode is named after. Sun is Luck & Glory, in gold. Moon is After Dark Lunacy, in silver. In Sun vs Moon versus the shop splits down the middle into two mirrored halves of 13 shelves — 1,040 slots a side — and each team can only touch its own bottles.

The room they stand in

The shelves are carried on 19 pieces of furniture — twelve bookshelves and seven double bookcases — under three glass domes that run a full day and night cycle. The bottles are physical objects, all 2,080 of them, so the pile you are digging through moves when you push it.

The words we use

For anyone writing about the game: it is an alchemist's potion shop, never an apothecary. The 2,080 objects are potions or bottles; “vessel” refers only to the eight vessel types. There are 260 names and 2,080 printed labels. A shelf has slots, rows and columns; bookshelves and bookcases are furniture.

See it in motion

The screenshots show the shelves at several hours of the day, and the Steam page has the trailer. Alchemess launches on 17 September 2026.