Hard Chip
Elorth · 2024 · Simulation, Logic, Programming, Puzzle, Difficult
PC
Very Positive92% · 62
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About Hard Chip
You are new_user, trapped. The only way out is through the machines but nothing works.Hard Chip is a 3D simulation and puzzle game where you design a real processor from scratch. No abstraction layers. No drag-and-drop logic blocks. You start with the foundation, the transistor and you build up from there.
BUILD FROM THE GATE UP
Wire complementary transistors into NAND and NOR gates. Combine gates into components. Combine components into circuits. By the end, you will have designed a working 8-bit ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) by hand, from silicon principles.ASSEMBLE INCREMENTALLY
Combine your gates into larger, more sophisticated parts. Each assembly is a puzzle, demanding not just intelligence but creativity, planning, and foresight.GROUNDED IN PHYSICS. NO SHORTCUTS.
Every wire has length. Every gate has delay. Your design is only as fast as its slowest path. Propagation delay is not a stat, it is a consequence you have to engineer around.A STRANGE WORLD THAT DEMANDS WORKING CHIPS
The terminals are dead. The machines are silent. Figure out why, one gate at a time.What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
Pros: It's a great game that's very ambitious in it concept. It teaches you how to build circuits out of transistors and wires in a very realistic way. The game's 3 state wire system (positive, negative, floating with capacitance and propagation delay) is uniquely realistic in a way I've never seen before. It has a believable, in universe way to explain why the puzzle solving mechanics exist within it's campaign. It has great tools to debug your circuits. The puzzles have a healthy balance between being challenging without feeling unsolvable. The game might teach you enough to get a job designing computer chips. It runs well, and the graphics look great. Cons: The game explains its core mechanics, but not the core implications of those mechanics. e.g. The way its 3 state wiring mechanic works is explained well, but the idea of needing multiple transistors to handle all the wire states, or the need to match wire lengths to avoid small shorts when switching multiple transistors simultaneously, in my opinion, wasn't emphasized enough. The game's difficulty curve is a little bumpy. Not enough emphasis is placed on the need to make your designs modular, this led me into a few situations…2 found this helpful
The game's controls leave a lot to be desired, as does the number of bugs that cause crashes - they happen all the time1 found this helpful
good game if you like barebones digital design1 found this helpful
I enjoyed chapter 1. I'm looking forward to additional chapters. What I felt was missing: - boundaries to be able to tell where a pasted blueprint begins and where it ends - the ability to paste a blueprint, then locking it as an immutable region - labeling of signals (as well as labeling in general) - it's kind of there, but it sucks1 found this helpful
I was too hasty in making my previous review and had not taken the time to submit a bug report or look further into it. this game is enjoyable.
Crashes often when copy/pasting saved schematics. They should include game play updates to include simulating noise-reduction circuits.
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