
Hard Chip is a 3D simulation/puzzle game about building processors focusing on realism. Explore the world of semiconductor chip design and delve into the intricacies of CPU logic, floor planning, and propagation delay.
Modeled estimate, not a reported figure. How we estimate →
Media

About
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.
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.
Combine your gates into larger, more sophisticated parts. Each assembly is a puzzle, demanding not just intelligence but creativity, planning, and foresight.
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.
The terminals are dead. The machines are silent. Figure out why, one gate at a time.
Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English, French, Russian, German, Spanish - Latin America, Italian, Japanese, Simplified Chinese
Engagement
Hours played at review time, across 40 reviews with recorded playtime.
Reviews
Themes across 40 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
Reviews
удобно реализовано создание логических схем из элементов и соединений. интересно реализована возможность прокладки соединений в пространстве. есть возможность усовершенствования решения за счет компактности. наглядно для обучения детей
Very addictive game. 10/10
Такое себе, скучно с первого взгляда. Кто-то неискушенный играми может найдет тут что-то. Как для меня, унылая бродилка по космическому кораблю, где ,невероятно, ты супер хакер должен придумать схему, чтобы открыть дверь. Да только схема уровня дед сада, это не Turing Complete с шикарными задачами. Здесь больше мороки с размещением проводов в пространстве, но и это никак не раскрывает процесс фотолитографии на кремний
Excellent pour developper l'intellec! Super jeux. Encore quelques bugs, mais il est tout jeune!
this is some nerdy ass ♥♥♥♥ also htf did some of you manage to get such good scores? this is crazy
My chips always end up like spaghetti Fun and challenging 10/10
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 where I had to build something all over again just to be able to reuse it. Overall: The game requires more patience and endurance then most other logic simulator games. But if you like logic/management games where the complexity comes from the sheer amount of simple pieces, and/or have a fascination with how computer chips are made, this game is a must.
Good music, fun puzzles, can't stop optimising. Works great on Nixos 25.05 with Intel Arc B580. The demo played great, but the full game needed proton. Proton 9.0-4 works fine.
just finished my first hour or so tinkering around. if this keeps up and we get to a full CPU it will be up there with turing complete as one of the best logic chip / ic design games.
[strike]I was unable to play the game since the game would freeze when editing chips, so I had to refund. I'd like to play as it seems interesting but I was only able to walk around and use the terminals, anything involving the chip simulation seemed to lock up the game.[/strike] I initially couldn't get the game working and I refunded, then I didn't want to give up since I do really think I'll like this game so I tried the demo...which worked fine...nothing has changed on my end and it works now...so I'm changing my review to positive until I actually get to play some.
Related
Related
Trends
Concurrent players on Steam, sampled daily since tracking started.
Audience
Estimated from the language of this game's reviews — a proxy for where players are, not official Steam demographics.
Related
| Secret Camera | $32.6K | 198 | 67% | $7.99 |
| Intergalactic Bubbles | $32.6K | 1K | 79% | $1.99 |
| Ladies, Don’t Tempt My Immortality | $32.6K | 77 | 91% | $10.99 |
| RoboSquad Revolution (Beta) | $32.6K | 63 | 89% | $29.99 |
| Chaos Sector 混沌宙域 | $32.6K | 97 | 82% | $9.99 |
| OmniFootman | $32.6K | 122 | 84% | $12.99 |