The Grandma Exploit

Career mode in PC Building Simulator is usually very straightforward--every day you get e-mails from desperate people with a variety of computer issues.  "Help, I clicked on something I shouldn't have!"  "I accidentally spilled a Cup-O'Noodles on my PC."  "I need you to upgrade my PC."  Then, it's a simple matter of trying to figure out exactly which parts are broken or will help customers attain their desired results.  For me, the best part of PC Building Simulator is building PC's from scratch.  Once you've hit a certain level, you will start getting requests to build new PC's.  Each request for a new PC is also accompanied by an explanation or request for what it should be capable of.  Some people want certain games to run at certain specs; others are on a budget and can only spend so much money; and others want a mega-PC capable of 4K resolution magic.

Of all the builds that I've done so far, one has really stood out in my mind for its clever deviousness.  It started off with a funny, innocent request from a grandma who needed a new PC so that she could chat with her grandson; how cute!  The e-mail was also sent in stereotypical grandma form--in all caps.  Grandma Jean stated that she didn't need anything fancy and set a budget of $450.  I threw together all the cheap components I could find and the total came up to $360.  Jean had the perfect bargain computer for chatting with her grandson.

One of the things that you will learn from completing builds is that there are usually complications and that you will end up seeing that same PC in your shop several more times.  The stories that follow these PC's can be quite funny and the game manages to create a cast of interesting people who are horrible with computers.  I wasn't surprised when I received another all caps, subject line only request from Jean to upgrade her computer.  I was surprised that Grandma was requesting 32 gigabytes of memory.  What kind of chatting is she getting up to?  The pay was good, so I ordered 4 sticks of 8g memory and souped up her cheap PC into a fabulous chatting machine.

The next day I received another e-mail from Jean.  She still didn't feel like her computer was fast enough and wanted a brand new, top of the line CPU.  I had a feeling that she really wasn't using her PC for chatting...  I replaced the bargain basement CPU with a shiny, new i7-7700K processor.

But Jean wasn't content, she needed more!  Now, she wanted me to upgrade her graphics card to a top of the line NVIDIA GeForce 1080 Ti.  Unfortunately, this was a part that I had to wait to unlock, but there wasn't a time limit, so Jean finally got her fancy new card.  She had the specs to be able to play all the best games in beautiful definition...  Maybe she was secretly into PUBG?  In 4k, nonetheless.

I got a more grandma-esque request the next day to figure out what was making her uber-machine run slowly.  She thought she had accidentally run into some malware.  I would gladly accept the $110 to install and run a simple virus program.  I had a theory about her odd computer upgrades....

And it turned out to be true.  All along, her grandson had been urging her to get upgrades so that he could convince her to swap PC's!  Talk about taking advantage of grandma...

I'm still enjoying the simple pleasures of PC Building Simulator and have enjoyed all the interesting characters who need PC's--the nutty author who secretly detests technology; the LARP nerd who needs a computer for their LARP group; the novice streamer who is trying to impress a girl.  It's entertaining to see these little stories unfold and I hope there are more to come.