Molek-Syntez on the surface is a puzzle game about building molecules from other molecules, namely make drugs, medicine and hormones out of things like benzene, acetone, ammonia, water and sulfuric acid.
But really, like pretty much every Zachtronics game it's really about parallel programming. In this game, you basically control robotic beamers on a rail in a hexagonal grid, to manipulate the molecules with a few choice commands:
- Remove, add or shunt hydrogen atoms
- Pull, push or rotate the whole molecule
- Move the beamers along its rail
- Output a solution
- Eliminate a byproduct
Here's an example - credit to Rock Paper Shotgun.
When controlling the beamers you will end up tweaking three metrics:
- Cycles - how fast your solution is
- Symbols - how many instructions your solution has
- Modules - how many reagents and beamers your solution use
Normally your first few solutions will be average in one of these three, terrible in the other two, and optimizing them is part of the replay value.
To round it out, there's a modified Solitaire minigame - which is very hard - you can play between puzzles and occasionally you'll have a story break in the form of some text.
That's the general Zachtronics formula: a programming game, with metrics you can optimize and obsess and a hard minigame you can beat N times for achievements and with bits of story interspersed to expand the world.
Now that we've introduced the game, let's talk about how I felt about it.
As a puzzle game, it's OK. The puzzles - excepting the first few which are really more of a tutorial - aren't trivial, even if they aren't "I need to meditate and hope the answer comes in the form of a dream" either. There's a big enough amount of them, between the main campaign and the bonus campaign. The controls weren't very intuitive - I kept messing up the rotation and moving instructions - but it's not a massive inconvenience.
The solitaire minigame is fun - I'd install it on my phone if it was sufficiently cheap, which is really more than I can about of a lot of minigames out there.
That said, I didn't really care for it as a Zachtronics game. I know they can do better because I've seen them do better in almost every aspect. The game felt like just too little in general: too little building blocks, too little building space, too little puzzle types, too little story, too little charm. The controls were also
Other games had one or more of these elements but made up for them in another way. Spacechem had four different puzzle types and better controls, Opus Magnum had an infinite working area, TIS-100 and Shenzhen IO had lots of charm and you could tell just by looking that Exapunks had a lot of love put into it.
So, yeah, not a game I hate but it's also not going to be in my replay list for a very long time. If you like puzzles go with Spacechem if you want the hair-tearing experience or Opus Magnum if you want an easier (and prettier) game experience.
If you really dig the minimalist look of Molek-Syntez go for TIS-100 (and later on, maybe Shenzhen IO) and if you hated it, go for Exapunks.
As harsh as it might sound, Molek-Syntez feels like a dud. Don't settle for the dud, get yourself the good stuff.