Key Takeaways
- Simulation games offer unique, sometimes odd experiences, like becoming a rock, breaking up with high school sweethearts, or living the life of a bee.
- PC Building Simulator 2 allows players to run a PC building business and learn all about building and customizing their dream PC.
- Airplane Mode simulates the real flight experience, giving players the chance to enjoy the mundane activities of a six-hour flight in real time.
The simulation genre has been around for about as long as PC gaming has. Its origins can be traced back to classic games like Flight Simulator and Sim City, but it never really broke into mainstream success. The simulation aspect was a little too complex and intimidating for most gamers compared to shooters, platformers, and action games. But for those who click with them, simulation games are some of the most satisfying experiences you can get.
While Flight Simulator and city builders are still going strong, there also exists a vast underbelly of simulation games that let you experience jobs, perspectives, and situations you would never think a developer would bother making a game for. And yet, they exist. I can’t say all of these will be fun exactly, but they’re undoubtedly unique and at least worth a look if only for a laugh. I’m including links here to prove that all of these simulation PC games are real, so let’s dive in.
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1 PC Building Simulator 2
We’re getting meta now
Hardcore PC gamers love the craft of building our dream PCs bit by bit. It’s that extra work that makes us connect with our hardware that much more, but buying and assembling parts is expensive and time-consuming. PC Building Simulator 2 lets you run your own PC building business so you can spend your free time building, upgrading, and customizing PCs to your heart’s content.
You have a full career mode where you will progress through various PC jobs learning to troubleshoot and solve software and hardware issues. You can also just go into the free build mode to create the gaming PC of your dreams. Either way, you will actually learn all the ins and outs of building a PC you can apply to the real thing.
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2 Rock Simulator 2
It’s exactly what you think
Is this a joke game? Yes. Is it still real and has a very positive review rating on Steam? Also yes. Simulating a rock is exactly what you imagine it to be, and yet people have found it to be a zen-like experience and clocked in hundreds of hours of “play” time.
I know what you’re thinking: don’t I need to play the first game to understand what’s going on? Just pick your rock and weather, and enjoy the ambiance. There’s also multiplayer so you can level up and collect new rocks together.
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3 Heartbreak High: A Break-Up Simulator
It’s not you, it’s me
Heartbreak High: A Break-Up Simulator
What’s worse, breaking up with someone or being broken up with? Heartbreak High focuses on the former by making you break up with all your high school sweethearts as fast, but also gently, as possible. It isn’t meant to be totally stress-inducing, though, as the writing is quite light and full of jokes to keep it from getting too soul-crushing.
The entire game is only around half an hour long but encourages replays. There are multiple ways to interact with each of your soon-to-be former sweethearts and multiple paths to various endings. This game probably won’t make you good at breaking up with people, but I don’t think that’s a real skill anyone wants to master anyway.
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4 Airplane Mode
Buckle up
There are plenty of flight simulators out there that put you in the cockpit of various aircraft, but what if you wanted the real flight experience the majority of people have? Airplane Mode perfectly replicates the experience of riding Coach for a six-hour long flight. Of course, that six hours is real-time. What do you do during the flight? The same things you would on a real flight, such as eating some bad snacks, reading a book, listening to music, and trying to ignore the crying baby a few rows back.
I can’t seriously recommend this game to anyone unless you, for some reason, just love the experience of being stuck in an uncomfortable seat for six hours with almost nothing to do. But if that’s how you want to spend your free time, by all means, give it a try.
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5 NIMBY Rails
Go off the rails
Anyone who has depended on public transportation has an opinion about it. Except for maybe Japan, there’s no railway system that satisfies everyone, but how hard would it really be to make the perfect train line system for a city? NIMBY Rails lets you see what it would be like to create your own train lines to best serve different populations.
This isn’t a casual railway game. You need to pay attention to the actual layouts of the city and your own train paths to keep things running smoothly. You can micromanage trains down to the individual train, and time of day, as well as set up stations across the world simultaneously to work on one in the day while it’s night at the other. People who are hardcore about trains tend to be very hardcore, so it only makes sense that this type of simulator would be made eventually.
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6 Speaking Simulator
Say what?
How hard could talking be? Even babies learn how to do it, right? Well, not like in Speaking Simulator where you need to manually manipulate your tongue and lips to form words. If you mess up, well, your face explodes. Clearly, this isn’t the most hardcore of simulations, but one of the most insane ideas for a game I’ve heard of and a hilarious little game.
The premise is that you are an AI attempting to fool regular humans by fitting in and speaking normally. You will go through ten different social situations, like job interviews, dates, and eulogies, to try and pass off as a real human. Just don’t let the game get into your head about how hard talking actually is or you may end up biting your tongue for real.
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7 PowerWash Simulator
Squeaky clean
Why is it that chores in real life are so boring and tedious, but when you do them in a video game they all of a sudden become so satisfying and relaxing? Whatever magic causes that, PowerWash Simulator is the best example of it. Blasting away dirt and grime just tickles that part of your brain that wants things to be clean and tidy.
Again, this is a job that no one really thinks about, let alone imagine would make a great simulator, yet is one of the most popular out there. This is also one of the most accessible simulators as well, with easy controls and a completely stress-free structure where you can just sit back and clean at your own pace. Will it inspire you to actually clean in real life more? Probably not, but it’s nice to pretend.
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8 I Am Bread
A balanced breakfast
If you thought being a rock was a strange idea for a simulator, how about a slice of bread? Technically bread shouldn’t be able to move either, but I Am Bread is all about moving, but in the least convenient way possible. This is a game from the same developers as Surgeon Simulator, so if you’re familiar with that game then you have an idea of what to expect here.
This game puts you into the shoes (crusts) of a slice of bread on a quest to reach the toaster to become, well, toast. Moving around is tricky enough from the intentionally awkward controls, but you also need to get there as clean as possible, plus not burn yourself by staying on the heat too long. It’s a rare mix of a joke game but also one that’s a ton of fun to master and has plenty of extra levels that incorporate other games like Team Fortress 2 and Goat Simulator.
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9 Bee Simulator
Be the Bee
There’s a simulator for all kinds of oddball animals already, such as goats, deer, and cats, but what about the humble bumblebee? Bees are unique creatures, so what would it be like to live the life of one of thousands of bees in part of a hive? Bee Simulator puts a good amount of flair on the whole thing, but it does follow the basic ideas of following your queen’s orders to collect pollen.
What’s most fun about Bee Simulator is just flying around a giant park from a bee’s size perspective. It also packs in some cool educational elements too so you can learn more about one of nature’s most important creatures. There are single-player and multiplayer modes so you can buzz around the world together.
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