Guess the element
Guess the element turns the periodic table into a number hunt. One of 95 elements is the answer, you have six guesses, and every miss tells you how far off the atomic number is and which way to move. If you can picture roughly where a handful of elements sit in the table, you can bisect your way to almost any answer inside four guesses.
What a miss tells you
Each miss returns the gap in atomic number, an arrow pointing up or down the table, and a score out of 100. This is the most mechanical feedback in the set and the most exploitable: guess something near the middle, read the direction, and halve the remaining range each time. Nothing about the chemistry matters until the clues start opening.
A worked round
The answer is nickel, atomic number 28, and you open with iron at 26. The gap comes back as 2 with the arrow pointing up, which leaves cobalt and nickel. The category clue has already told you it is a transition metal, so the second guess settles it. Opening with an element you know the number of is worth more than opening with one you can spell.
The clues
Six clues sit above the board and one opens after every wrong guess, running broad to specific: category, state at room temp, period, atomic mass, symbol starts with, symbol.
Common questions
Do I need to know atomic numbers?
It helps but it is not required. The arrow tells you which way to move through the table, so working from elements you do know is enough.
Why 95 elements and not 118?
The heaviest synthetic elements are excluded. They exist for a fraction of a second, most people have never heard of them, and guessing between them is not a puzzle.
What are the six clues?
Category, state at room temperature, period, atomic mass, the letter the symbol starts with, and the symbol itself.