Chinese Game Review: Shenzhen I/O 深圳I/O

[StChris]

 

Platform(s): PC

Genre: puzzle, engineering, coding

Vocab: day-to-day business vocab, engineering, technical

Game description: BUILD CIRCUITS. WRITE CODE. RTFM

Build circuits using a variety of components from different manufacturers, like microcontrollers, memory, logic gates, and LCD screens.

Write code in a compact and powerful assembly language where every instruction can be conditionally executed.

Read the included manual, which includes over 30 pages of original datasheets, reference guides, and technical diagrams.

Get to know the colourful cast of characters at your new employer, 深圳龙腾科技有限公司 (Shenzhen Longteng Electronics Co., Ltd.), located in the electronics capital of the world.

Get creative! Design and test your own games and devices in the sandbox.

Engineering is hard! Take a break and play a brand-new twist on solitaire.

 

This is a great little game, which simulates the player being hired as an engineer for a Chinese electronics company. The main interface is your company email, where you will receive your work assignments, as well as catch up on the latest office gossip.

 

 

These work assignments (which constitute the meat of the gameplay) involve designing the circuits and writing the code for various consumer electronics, for example alarm and lighting systems. Although previous programming experience is recommended, I think you could still get into the game without it, so long as you are willing to put in the effort to learn. Luckily, I had already learnt a little assembly language just before buying the game and that helped me a lot. However, as someone who has never done any work with electronic components, the hardware side of the designing was definitely a weak spot for me. That said, I found the gameplay a lot of fun. There is more than one way to solve each design problem, and it's interesting to compare your solution with that of others, seeing who managed to write the most elegant code or who managed to use the fewest number of components (thus leading to a lower manufacturing cost - it is a business after all, and producing efficient designs will please your boss).

 

 

The game does provide a manual, describing each component in detail, what it does, and how to program for it. It really is essential that you read it, so be prepared for some technical Chinese. 

 

 

Thankfully, the game makes it very easy to swap between English and Chinese, so you can quickly switch between the two in-game if you feel you don't understand something. Technical instructions can be confusing in any language, and I was often still not entirely sure what I should be doing, even after reading the same sections over again in English! If that all sounds very difficult then worry not, because like in any office job there is plenty of opportunity to procrastinate in the form of this addictive Chinese-style solitaire game.

 

 

While it's not a game for everyone, technically minded people who like problem solving will certainly find a lot to enjoy here.