There have been plenty of interesting simulations over the history of video gaming. Planes, trains, and automobiles were among the first and have been among the most popular simulators. More recently things have got a bit weird with Sim games centred on activities which could be seen as drudgery (bus driver, street cleaning etc), Sim animal games, Sim inanimate stationary object games, and more - enough to make your mind boggle.
This week a new Sim game has been released in alpha testing stage and free to donwload for those interested in the topic. The PC Building Simulator v0.01 is available to download now for Windows and Linux users. Developer 'McIntyre' is looking for feedback, suggestions, bug reports and so on via his/her Wordpress blog. Remember this is a 'pre-alpha' release so the developer will likely be aware and actively working on obvious issues.
Writing about the release, McIntyre said that "I know some of the components don’t make sense as choices today but I have mainly focused on getting everything to work and better and more numerous 3D models will come in the future." In a previous post it was mentioned that the game has been delayed as permission was sought from various component manufacturers for their granded products to feature.
In 'playing' the game you begin by choosing a bare chassis, then as you rotate and position components, starting from the likes of small but essential motherboard stand-offs (a 'miscellaneous' category item), you can assemble your lovely Sim-PC from an inventory list with categories such as; motherboards, graphics cards, CPUs, and so on.
When finished, the PC Building Simulator will aim to provide:
- Accurately sized 3D models of components.
- Accurate interactions between them. Everything has a slot where it installs just like it would in real life.
- Simple to follow tutorial that will get you started building your first computer, having components and procedures explained step by step.
- Preview builds before starting to work on them in real life.
- All that and much more…
As this PC-making Sim is refined it has the potential to tie in with online PC component retailers. That could be both interesting and useful for some, and perhaps it could prevent people making classic mistakes such as ordering a CPU cooler that is too tall, or a graphics card is that too wide or long, for the chassis that is also part of the order.
