This game is about building PCs while loan sharks breathe down your neck

(Image credit: SPEX)

Running a small business is hard. Spe:X puts you in the entrepreneurial shoes of Ilie, the founder of a small up-and-coming boutique PC building shop in Eastern Europe. You spend your day taking orders and building the perfect PCs for your clients, all the while handling shady financial pressures that could cause everything to come crumbling down.

To get the business up and running, you've gotten into bed with loan sharks who will take a cut of your daily profits. You'll have to make enough money building PCs to keep the lights on and pay off your loans. You build each PC from scratch with components from your inventory, doing your best to match your client's specifications.

Throughout the short eight-day campaign, you'll work day and night building PCs in the face of potential ruin. Ilie will receive visitors to the shop and how you interact with them will affect the ending.

Customers send feedback on each build: "This computer is a catastrophe!" is the best bad review I could ask for.

Spe:X isn't as complex as other PC building simulators we've seen on Steam. It appears to take a more tongue-in-cheek approach to PC building in both its art and narrative. For a more freeform experience, there's an endless mode with unlimited days. You'll still have to make daily loan payments, though, fulfilling more and more challenging requests to see how many days your little shop can make it before it all goes wrong.

Spe:X is out on Steam for $5, and there's a free demo.

Jorge is a hardware writer from the enchanted lands of New Jersey. When he's not filling the office with the smell of Pop-Tarts, he's reviewing all sorts of gaming hardware, from laptops with the latest mobile GPUs to gaming chairs with built-in back massagers. He's been covering games and tech for over ten years and has written for Dualshockers, WCCFtech, Tom's Guide, and a bunch of other places on the world wide web.