History Main / JustAddWater

* ''Power Stone 2'' lets you mix 2 items to get a new one. Obtaining multiple copies of ones you already own would make the chances of it appearing during a fight higher.

* Every single one of the recipes in all of Gust's ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'' games. The entire series of games is based on this trope. Some games force you to use special utensils for certain recipes, but only until your Alchemy level is high enough.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', as producing items involves the required resources, a designated workshop for that particular trade, and a dwarf assigned the relevant labor. Most of the crafting is appropriately complex (many plants need to be processed to make them usable, smelting and forging need fuel and/or [[LavaAddsAwesome magma]], cloth has to be woven from thread, etc). There are still occasional simplifications though. For example, brewing alcohol doesn't require you to [[IncrediblyLamePun just add water]], allowing for a steady supply of hydration in regions with no viable water source [[note]]Up until you find out that injured dwarves can only be given water[[/note]].

** There's nothing at all bizarre about the end result (steel swords are perfectly reasonable material sources for making steel armor, for instance). The ''process'', on the other hand...

* ''VideoGame/DeadRising3'' takes this aspect of the previous game's crafting and turns it UpToEleven, with combo weapons like a robotic attack cat made from an LCD monitor and an empty beer keg, or a sort of homemade potato cannon with a rotary cylinder that fires grenades, made from a pump-action shotgun and a hand grenade.

* ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'' lets you make all sorts of incredibly destructive weapons using random things found around the game world and liberal use of a seemingly infinite amount of duct tape. You only need two items, yet the result features more. For example, a Paddlesaw is made from a canoe paddle and a chainsaw, yet the final result has ''two'' chainsaws.

Similarly, chemists and potion makers can create any liquid or potion by mixing two liquids in kept test tubes. There may be a chance (depending on the game) of getting a small explosion instead, which can have any effect from simply [[AshFace coating the face with a harmless dark, dusty substance]], to [[BalefulPolymorph changing the potion maker into an animal]].

This may or may not be an AcceptableBreakFromReality (depending on how far they stretch it).

Not to be confused with InstantAIJustAddWater

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' has a large crafting system where one can take unwanted items (including glass jars filled with urine, boxing gloves, and ''raw steak'', somehow) and smelt them into scrap metal, which then gets combined into reclaimed and refined metal, which then can be made into [[NiceHat the game's ultimate goal]]. Specific recipes also exist to craft specific other items and weapons without having to wait for the random drop system to give them to you.

** Then again, there's the [[GameMod modpack]] Gregtech: New Horizons, and [[UpToEleven oh boy, does it subvert this trope...]] To begin with, doors now need, among other ingredients, an iron ring, which is made by filing an ingot into a rod, then bending it with a hammer. Since almost all crafting recipes require some kind of Gregtech-based component, like plates, rods or screws, [[ComplexityAddiction it only gets better from here.]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Alchemy with ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'']]

In a video game with an ItemCrafting system, everything that can be created can be made by two items combined in a relatively simple fashion. No matter how complicated something is to make, sticking the right two pieces of VendorTrash into an oven will produce it. Need a {{BFG}}? Just glue a tiny hammer to a hollow tube, and you're ready to go! Forget your LoveInterest's birthday? Pop an egg and a bag of sugar (still in bag, mind you) into the oven, and you'll have a delicious and moist cake!

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', making [[HealThyself health-restoring]] and {{Status Buff}}ing meals and potions is simply a matter of tossing the proper mix of up to five ingredients in a cooking pot, waiting a few seconds while they bubble and simmer (and Link hums along to the cooking music), and voila! You might or might not have to light a fire under the pot first.

* The ItemCrafting mechanic in ''VideoGame/CuteKnight'' only uses 2 ingredients per creation. Have a stick and some rocks? You can craft a spear! Combine that stick with a magic wand? You get an actual staff! Etc.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Aquaria}}'', Naija can combine edible items to make different foods. Recipes can be plausible, yet simplified, such as Fish Oil + Fish Meat = Hot Soup, to somehow being able to combine two bones into a mound of meat that heals you.

** On a similar note, the UsefulNotes/IOSGames ''Doodle God'' and ''Doodle Devil''.[[/folder]]

* ''VideoGame/BloodstainedRitualOfTheNight'' plays it straight, where crafting involves taking between two and four different items (and possibly multiple copies of each) and sticking them into an alchemical circle to be poofed into whatever you're trying to make. Though many times you might have to make special ingredients before you can make the item you're going for, like the InfinityPlusOne sword requires as one of its ingredients a sword that can only be obtained through alchemy, which requires another sword that can only be obtained through alchemy...

[[folder:PuzzleGame]]

** On a similar note, the games ''Doodle God'' and ''Doodle Devil'' for the [[IOSGames iOS.]]
[[/folder]]

* ''[[Videogame/AncientdomainsOfMystery ADOM]]'' plays this straight, to some hilarious effects. Some nice potions can be created by combining two other potions and/or herbs, and the recipes are randomly generated (and revealed by raising your Alchemy skills). But try to combine some unlisted potions, and you get a huge explosion. Particularly hilarious when you combine ''[[MadeOfExplodium two potions of water]]''. Doubly so when if you happen to have [[ImprobableWeaponUser fire immunity]].

* Alchemy in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII''

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' has a large crafting system where one can take unwanted items and smelt them into scrap metal, which then gets combined into reclaimed and refined metal, which then can be made into [[NiceHat the game's ultimate goal]]. Specific recipes also exist to craft specific other items and weapons without having to wait for the random drop system to give them to you.

* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' lives and breathes this trope. Items are assembled by actually more or less drawing what you what with the requisite materials. A torch is a stick with a lump of coal on top, a bookcase is wooden boards with books in the middle, a pickaxe is two sticks end to end with three blocks of the head's material (wood, stone, iron, or diamond) crosswise at the top.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', a potion maker can make any of his wares from a single type of Chu jelly, though he needs several units for a full batch. Possibly justified as it he might be simply distilling or refining the jelly in some way. In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'', you can drink the jelly straight for the same effects.