A new Zachtronics Game came out in November & I just found out.

Zachtronics is my favorite developer. EXAPUNKS was my GOTY 2018. I am just at a loss how this slipped under my radar. I'm in steam every day, and it never pushed it into my recommendations, even though I put 100s of hours into all other Zachtronics games. I mean, I buy most games that steam says are Zach-like.

I saw no press coverage for this. How many consistently great games does a studio have to make to get noticed and reviewed? Metacritic has no reviews and inaccurately states it is in early access. I mean, it can't bode well for the state of the studio.

Yeah, I buy every Zachtronic game the first day I can, but I gotta say that MOLEK-SYNTEZ didn't do it for me. I played it for a couple of hours and the mechanics were complicated and not very satisfying. My high-water marks for Zachtronics are still EXAPUNKS and Opus Magnum.

Don't regret the purchase though. I'll happily pay just for Zachtronic games I barely even play, just to support the enterprise.

I think what elevates it is the fact that you are dealing with real molecules and their real structure. The 4th puzzle in the game has you making amphetamine out of benzene and ammonia, so it's basically Breaking Bad. And it's the real molecules! I suppose any game could do this but how they gamify it is by only letting you affect bonds by adding and removing hydrogen atoms.

I really liked it, but like all the Zachtronics games, I still haven't beaten it. I am super curious to see how the story ends up though. I think they didn't do much (or any) press about it is because it was kind of like a side project while they are working on something else. Since you didn't hear about it @drbroel you should follow their developer account on Steam to get notified when a new one comes out. If you're looking for yet another new Zachlike, I made a game called Pictassembler that is more similar to Infinifactory and Opus Magnum.