I've never built a full PC from scratch, but I feel like a right engineering genius every time I open a PC up and stick in some extra memory or a new graphics card. If you want to get that feeling without having to shell out for some expensive tech, or face all the dust that's been collecting since the last time you opened the case, then you might want to take a look at PC Building Simulator, a game that pretty much introduces itself.
We invited developer The Irregular Corporation to show off, and chat about, its tactile PC-making sim at the recent PC Gamer Weekender. Here's a snippet of game footage that reveals just how close the simulator seems to the real event—if you leave out the frequent swearing, the interruptions of your curious cat, and the constant terror that you'll fry the motherboard with static electricity:
PC Building Simulator's early access will begin on March 27, but you can play the free prototype while you wait.
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Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.