Forget school, the old methods are dropping away, in today’s times if you need to learn something, most will head to Youtube to look for a walk-through so they can learn step by step from someone who is showing them on their own monitor what to do.
Taking this one step further are the simulation genre games. These are surprisingly popular, and strangely addictive; we have a colleague here at gadgethelpline who will happily spend many a night driving through states on his trucking simulator without a care in the world.
A game we would like to highlight today is PC Building Simulator by McINTYRE and it does exactly what it says on the tin!
Still in very early development, the creators of this game have now released it to the general public for free download. Disclaimer: This is a free pre-alpha game, so no baby rage if it crashes at all.
The game loads you into a small PC workshop room, complete with shelving for components and a workbench with your chosen chassis on it ready to go.
Not only do you get to choose the components it will also expect you to build the pc within the game and offer tips to help you along the way.
Obviously if you have built a pc before then this is not really going to be giving you anything you did not already know. What it will do is allow you to play with parts that you do not own to see what the finished product will look like. For example you will be able to see if that beast of a graphics card will actually fit in your favorite case.
With regards to the components, most of them in game are not exactly cutting edge but the dev will hopefully be adding many more once the game gains a little traction.
Overall the game has potential for sure, personally I have built more pc’s in the last 20 years than i care to think about and would still try this game out because i like to get a visual feel of what i am creating. If you have ever been putting a pc parts list together for yourself or a friend this game is also perfect as you should be able to hot swap components in and see if they are compatible or not.
Ideally, this software should prevent many non faulty returns, or just prevent the chance of spending cash on an item you cannot use and possibly, cannot return.
Looking forward with interest to see how this develops!