Circuit Depot is a retro computer shop simulator set in 1999. Buy broken PCs for a few dollars, work out what is wrong, and bring them back to life. Build computers for the people who walk through your door. Stock the shelves, open up each morning, count out change at the register, and grow a small strip-mall store into the place the whole town brings its computers.
The machine on your bench cost eight dollars, and it refuses to start. Every fault has a real cause, and the evidence is there for anyone who looks: three beeps at power-on, a memory stick lifted half out of its slot, a power supply that clicks once and goes quiet. Open the case, read the bench tester, reseat the memory, swap the dead card, blow out ten years of dust, and wait for the single beep that means it worked. Your bench has screwdrivers, pliers, compressed air, a multimeter and a box of spare parts.
People come in wanting something specific: a computer for homework, one for the family's finances, or one for the flight sim that needs a 3D card. Choose the processor, memory, video card and sound card to fit what they want to do and what they can pay. Put it together, load their software, and test it on the counter before they pick it up. Then watch their game run on a machine you built for them.
Hunt thrift stores and garage sales for untested hardware, and for the sound card somebody once saved for months to buy, still waiting in an ordinary beige case. Price your stock, fill the software wall and the upgrade aisle, and set up demo machines that sell themselves. Open the doors each morning, serve your customers, and count out the change at the register. A restored machine can go on the shelf, go home with a customer, or stay with you.
The computers work, and so does their software. Boot a machine you restored into a game and play it. Change its wallpaper, install the programs you remember, and make it yours. A customer may come back with the computer you sold them, your wallpaper still on the screen and a new saved game on the drive. After closing, sit down at your favorite machine, or host a Friday LAN night for the regulars.
Expand into the unit next door. Open a back room, build a LAN club, and start a computer museum of the machines you love too much to sell.
Features
A 1999 computer store in first person, from the repair bench to the register
Repair used PCs by finding real faults in memory, power, cards, drives and dust
Build custom computers to fit each customer's needs and budget
Buy untested hardware at thrift stores and garage sales
Stock and arrange the shelves, set prices, open up each morning and make change at the register
Play the games on the computers you restore, and make each machine your own
Expand the shop with a LAN club and a museum of your own collection
In 1999 a computer was a box you could open, understand and make do more. Circuit Depot gives you that box again, and the shop you loved walking into.
