PC Building Simulator is the current free game, everyone can now have a new GPU!
Stubbs the Zombie was worth a playthrough (played it when it came out back when, even came on an old-timey CD!). But they dropped all the cool covers of old 1950s songs done by (then) modern bands due to licensing issues, which is a real shame.
Well damn. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised but that was one of the highlights for me on my original playthrough.
I imagine a client update will include it. The fresh install I just did installed it without providing any notice. I only know about it because it’s a separate app entry from the launcher in add/remove programs.
I bet someone will make a playlist on Spotify to run in the background.
Has anyone tried this week’s free game? PC Building Simulator? How on earth do they make that a fun activity for a game?
It is a fun game as it happens. It gamifies PC building and repair pretty nicely and injects a kind of career mode as well. Plus it uses real life components. It’s surprisingly entertaining to plan your jobs (ordering parts in advance etc) and deciding which upgrades you want next. It was worth whatever I paid for it way back when, and it’s definitely worth playing for free.
This may be a dumb Sat. morning question, but is the simulator accurate enough to plan an actual PC build, i.e. will this gigantic video card fit in this case? Is my cooling setup sufficient? Etc.
Pretty sure I got it free with a Humble Bundle a few months ago and was surprisingly entertained. That said, the gameplay loop was fairly repetitive (build/repair PC’s to make money, invest money in better parts/tools, build/repair higher end PC’s to make even more money, invest that money, lather, rinse, repeat). I think I put about 15-20 hours into it before I got bored with it. Still, as a free game I can recommend it.
I don’t believe you could actually plan a PC build with it, as you’d have to play long enough to get to the latest GPU’s, processors, etc. It is surprisingly hands on, though, so if you’ve never built your own system before you would probably learn something.
And if you’re playing this game - for the love of God, don’t forget the thermal paste!
Yeah I agree with this. I definitely learned something, and it made me more confident about opening my own case (I try not to; without the foolhardiness of youth it scares me to do it these days). It’s not deep enough to cover everything for a build-from-scratch, like exactly where the USB headers are in a particular motherboard etc. But it’s more than half way there, and good fun too.
Would it make me spend 45 minutes messing with the screws on the CPU cooler until I manage to make it fit? It wouldn’t be realistic without it.
@ArtVandelay or let me build the entire PC, screw everything in, do a POST, then realize I forgot to put on the mobo I/O shield. ;)
I’ll give this much credit toward PC Building Simulator; its sandbox mode (unlimited money) lets you see all the parts when they’re together and check fits, plus it gives you a notion of where to go for screws and cable connections. Of course, it’s obviously not the same.
Does this game allow me to trap a small corner of skin under the CPU when I snap it in place and then bleed on the mobo when I rip my thumb out?
That is obviously the Halloween themed DLC!
I’m gonna wait until the Mysterious Single Bent Pin in CPU Socket DLC drops.
Yikes. I’m lucky I didn’t start building till they put those fancy mechanisms in the motherboards that made CPUs easy to install.
Serious question - does the game feature faulty components (with no visible damage) that you have to diagnose? For example, having a 5% chance of a faulty PCI-e on a mobo that you cannot see by looking at it.
As I recall, it does. After you level up enough and can afford it, diagnostic tools are available that help you determine which part is faulty. There’s usually some sort of hint in the repair order that gives you an idea what’s going wrong, so typically it’s easy to diagnose. Sometimes, though, you just need to pull out a part and replace it to see if that gets you back up and running.
That’s amazing! Thanks for the quick answer.