PC Building Simulator booting up in autumn
It does exactly what it says on the tin
PC Building Simulator [official site] is not a game where your hand gets caught in a CPU fan and the PC spins round and round on your fingertip as wacky physics send everything in your workspace flying. Bumping the case as you insert a hard drive will not make your graphics card explode. Trying to insert RAM the wrong way will not make it vibrate and clang until it vanishes through a wall. No, PC Building Simulator is simply a game about building PCs component by component. We've mentioned it earlier this year after playing a free prototype, and now it's headed for a full commercial release in autumn.
As in the real world, players will start with a load of components then piece them together like expensive LEGO. Slap cards into slots, apply thermal paste, pop in cables, screw this and screw that, and let's POST this sucker.
PC Building Simulator will have a career mode, where players will build systems, perform upgrades, and fix problems for customers while turning a profit. It'll also have challenges including overclocking.
That might be a lark but hey, a safe way to learn what all the bits of a PC's guts are and where they go could also be hugely useful for many people. The Internet is littered with stories and pictures from people who spread thermal paste on a CPU's pins or whacked a motherboard in without standoffs, frying their expensive hardware.
Looks like they're angling for approval to include real-world brands and components, which would be ideal.
PC Building Simulator is headed to Steam some time this autumn. It's the work of lone developer Claudiu Kiss. After his early demo "went viral", publishers The Irregular Corporation swept in to support a full launch.
That pre-alpha demo is still up on Itch.io but do be aware that it's months old.
I've switched to laptops because large objects (plants aside, obvs) feel like horrible burdens that will trap me and latch onto my ankles as I try to flee but I do miss building my own PCs. I especially liked the yielding resistance and noises of inserting RAM then closing the latches. Though it has been a few years since I got in a PC's guts so, for all I know, they could now be filled with crystal shards and coloured gels.