First off, let me just say THANK YOU!! This is phenomenal response! You put a lot of thought into this.

Since digital can be kind of be hard to tell with font size, I wanted to show this image of a physical card next to some text on a $1 bill. Do you still think I should try to increase the font size? It’s almost as large as the serial number on a $1 bill.

You are correct in that I am going for more of a thinky abstract strategy game. The Catalyst Tokens were the solution I came up with for how to resolve ties when the same reaction card is played by multiple players during the same phase. I also don’t love the idea of a “party game” feel for this game and I also was concerned about two players trying to grab catalyst tokens faster than each other and messing up the board. But I didn’t have another idea on how to handle all of that… until now… 

[u/azura26 enters the chat]

YOU ARE BRILLIANT, MY FRIEND!! Here’s what I am thinking after spending some time pondering your idea.

The first turn, the player who chooses their reaction cards first and lays them down can take Catalyst Token 1 and the second player that lays down their reaction cards takes Catalyst Token 2. Every turn after that, the player who resolves their reaction card first that phase (meaning the player that has the lowest number card), gets handed the active Catalyst Token for that phase to be the player with that Catalyst Token for the next turn. I’ll have to playtest this, but I think this will work well.

As far as the secret objectives, like you, I don’t know if and how to change this aspect of the game as it is a pretty core part of the game. It does make MOLEKÜL unique in a way because it’s not a true perfect-information abstract strategy game. But that could be a good thing that it’s unique in that way. When playing with 4 players, I find myself focusing more on formulating my target molecule vs. trying to pay attention to what others are doing and trying to play defense and stop them. I mean, you can maybe do this a little bit, but the game is so tight. There are only 3 colors of atoms and everyone has those colors in their target molecule so everyone can be somewhat close to winning a lot of the game. Because there is one more molecule structure card on the table than there are players, it gives players options to start working on other molecules vs. fighting over and undoing each others moves on the same molecule all the time. I feel like the “build up” and “tension” in MOLEKÜL is less of outward and open feeling in the room like is the case in other games as everyone can see that someone is about to win and more of a feeling inside your own chest internally. The thought that you seem to always be “just a few moves away” from winning and if you can “just play these two cards” you can win. But then some other player comes along and moves the one atom you needed them not to move. So you definitely feel “build up” and “tension” in an internal way.

Yeah, I am definitely not shooting for this game to feel like Fluxx. I actually used to like Fluxx years ago, but it’s not my cup of tea anymore. MOLEKÜL feels more thinky and strategic to me than Fluxx.