The Most Niche Simulation PC Games We Could Find

Billed as "the most realistic flight simulation ever created," Airplane Mode promises all the thrills of a six-hour flight.

You can look out the window, work on a crossword puzzle, read the book you brought, and even watch movies on the screen in front of you.

The only unrealistic part is that the seat next to you isn't taken.

Of course, no game is complete without some kind of adversarial threat.

The developer promises randomized events each time you play.

You'll have to endure the agony of bad Wi-Fi, the mild inconvenience of delays, and the annoyance/empathy of listening to a crying baby.

The developer also promises a 2020 Steam launch.

Given that COVID-19 has made the already stressful flying experience an actively dangerous one, this game might feel pleasantly nostalgic by the time it's released.

TBD at Steam

The Bee Simulator trailer opens with a powerful promise: Become a bee.

What more could you ask for? Bees are great! They pollinate, they make honey, they live in cool hives.

In Bee Simulator, you'll do all that and help your extended bee family grow.

Plus, you get to look at a cute, fuzzy, lil' insect for the whole game.

You can become a bee on most major platforms.

PC players can purchase this swarming adventure from the Epic Games store.

$27.99 at Epic Games

SimCity may be the landmark franchise for the city-building genre, but the blunders of the 2013 SimCity release opened the door for new challengers to the throne. Cities: Skylines can't quite unseat SimCity's legacy out of the gate, but it's a fantastic addition to the genre that has become the de facto city-builder in the years since its release.

The idea is to grow your small town to a buzzing metropolis, monitoring population, happiness, and income.

Plan and build roads and neighborhoods with residences, and live the hectic life of a god-like city planner.

The basics for setting up a functional town aren't difficult to learn, but there are so many different buildings and amenities to master that making a truly efficient city takes time.

And that's before you take aesthetics into account—building a visually stunning city is half the fun.

Balancing optimal functionality with visual appeal is an absorbing challenge, as you'll want to make those sweeping highways that move traffic more effectively look grand, too.

The blank canvas of a new file is oddly invigorating, a chance to plan for mistakes that caused problems in your last city.

If you stick with Cities: Skylines and learn to be flexible with the tools, you'll eventually look back on your first attempts as archaic, and the only limit for your next design is your imagination.

Just don't forget to connect the plumbing.

$29.99 at Steam

Listen, we all want to bring about the end of days by learning the arcane mysteries of the forgotten powers that live beyond the veil.

But who among us is willing to follow the tentacle-drenched edicts, and pay the horrible price for that knowledge? In Cultist Simulator, you will.

This narrative-driven roguelike card game comes from the mind of Alexis Kennedy, whose previous games Sunless Sea and Fallen London mixed humor and horror into enthralling and atmospheric games.

Cultist Simulator is more stripped-down than those efforts, but has a similar depth and wit.

The roguelike elements will be familiar to any Sunless Sea players, so be ready to submit to madness.

Probably several times.

$19.99 at Steam

The frozen wastes near Mount St.

Somewhere call to your simulacrum and your digital dog sled team in Dog Sled Saga.

The game's goal is to manage your team of mushers and dogs, learning their unique working styles and growing to become a legendary dog sledder.

Most importantly, you can pet your simulated dogs.

This is really the most important part, and makes it the most significant piece of dog-sled related media since the Cuba Gooding Jr.

classic Snow Dogs.

$7.99 at Steam

Dwarf Fortress (or, rather, "Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress") is a labor of love spanning nearly two decades.

You take command of a generational colony of fantasy miners living in a mountain.

Construct new mines, dig new tunnels, and keep your dwarves whistling while they work with cats and a healthy family life.

And then wait for it to all go wrong.

Dwarf Fortress is known for its incredible complexity and difficulty, where a single mistake can lead to tragedy.

Tunneling too greedily and too deep can, for example, accidentally flood your dwarves' home when you hit some groundwater.

Famously unfinished and without an actual winning condition, each game is guaranteed to eventually collapse into spectacular failure.Dwarf Fortress recently had a Steam release, opening a new chapter for this storied fan favorite.

The Steam version ships with a custom tile set, in case you were sick of starring at an ASCII, but appears to stick close to its roots.

TBD at Steam

Ever wanted to just kick back, relax, and hit the (virtual) road? Euro Truck Simulator 2 offers exactly that, charging you with driving cargo from point A to point B across the European continent.

You can customize your vehicle, and even run a business for which you can purchase garages, trucks, and hire drivers.

You'll earn less for picking up scratches and other damage along the way, so try not to get distracted by the beautiful scenery.

Despite those features and goals, it's really all about the driving, a vehicle sim in the truest sense.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 is not a game for high-speed thrill seekers—you're meant to follow the rules of the road in your huge cargo vehicle—but something to zone out to at the end of a long day.

It may sound dull on paper, but its peaceful vibe and the ability to put on some tunes as you cruise the highway make for a surprisingly enjoyable experience.

Finally, a game that delivers on the promise of the masterful Desert Bus.

$19.99 at Steam

If you enjoyed Stardew Valley but didn't like all that pesky relationship and story crap, and you also really love Euro Truck, then consider Farming Simulator 19.

Proving that it really does take all kinds, this game lets you tackle a variety of crops (from sunflowers to soybeans to lumber) and bring them to market.

If animal husbandry is more your thing, try raising cows, chickens, pigs, or sheep.

You can even tackle the difficulties of modern agrarian life with up to 16 other players in the online co-op mode.

This entry in the series offers improved graphics, new locations in the US and Europe, and hundreds of authentic farming vehicles.

Farming Simulator also finally lets you keep horses—at last.If you really love this title, consider dropping an additional $250 on Logitech's custom hardware controllers for the game.

If there's one thing we love more than tediously precise simulators, its tediously precise hardware for those simulators.

You may have to wait, a bit though...it's on backorder!

$24.99 at Steam

The Great Recession really did a number on all of us, and this House Flipper simulator certainly seems to be a byproduct of that cultural experience.

Start by purchasing a dilapidated house (in what appears to be an otherwise nice neighborhood), and then turn it into a dream home for big bucks.

Like the PC building simulator we explore elsewhere, House Flipper seems to put a lot of its stock into agonizing realism.

You'll have to rewire those sockets, change the fuses, and clean the windows before you can hand over the keys to a buyer.

But the game also features a dollhouse-like interior design mode.

If you've ever played The Sims just so you could build a cool house, this will certainly appeal.

If you're a fan of house flipping and also a fan of Football Simulator, consider the forthcoming Stadium Renovator.

It's just like house flipping, but with way more chairs and AstroTurf.

$17.99 at Steam

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes depicts that tense, Hollywood moment where the hero must defuse a bomb based on instructions provided over radio.

Several players have different sets of (lengthy) instructions for bomb defusal that may, or may not, relate to the bomb the defuser sees.

The defuser needs to not only defuse the bomb, but describe it adequately so the rest of the players can tell him what to do.

Keep Talking reminds me of Spaceteam, in that it requires participants to communicate in real time outside the game.

Also like Spaceteam, the crux of the game is as much about reflexes as it is about communication; each player has some piece of information another one needs.

It's very clever, and worth your time if you're interested in adding some hilarious stress to your next dinner party.

$14.99 at Steam

Dubbed an "economic RTS" by its creators, Offworld Trading Company challenges you to build a Martian colony whose survival depends on its economic success.

Buy and sell your way to victory while a real-time commodities market ticks away in the background.

This setting makes the forces of unchecked capitalism as deadly as the cold vacuum of space.

Offworld might be one of the more fantastical simulations in our list.

As such, it would be easy to discount.

But consider that players have to play a StarCraft-style RTS while also watching the price of 13 different resources constantly fluctuate on their screens.

If that doesn't pass the wonkiness threshold for our brand of niche game, we don't know what does.

$29.99 at Steam

The glorious republic of Arstotzka is having a bit of an immigration problem, and it's up to you, a border agent, to quickly and accurately assess the validity of each visa request in the darkly comedic Papers, Please.

As the political situation changes, so do the requirements at the border crossing.

You'll have to quickly peruse all the documents and decide whether to allow each person to pass.

All the while, you need to bring in enough money to feed and house your family, and choose between counterrevolutionary behavior and starvation.

This game will not only challenge your abilities as a player, but also force you to make terrible choices between your personal morals and playing by the rules of the game.

Have fun!

$9.99 at Steam

In PC Building Simulator you build simulated PCs.

Hence the name.

Choose your components, pick your case, and power on your dream battle station.

You want lights? You got it.

You want liquid cooling and brand tie-ins from major names in the industry? It's all here.

You want simulated 3D benchmark tests and a repair mode where you run virtual antivirus? That's here, but why you're asking about it makes us a little worried.

There's more than just high-end product-placement wish fulfillment in PC Building Simulator, though.

The developer claims that part of the game is to learn about the components and how to actually put them together.

It's edu-tainment!

What we find so intriguing about this particular title is its bewildering reflection-of-a-reflection-of-a-reflection sensibility.

The idea of using a gaming PC to build another gaming PC and then boot up that gaming PC to use a simulation of an operating system approaches Philip K.

Dick-level absurdity.

$19.99 at Steam

RimWorld is a sci-fi colony-building sim, where you must make a hostile planet home for your colonists.

Managing a host of eccentric pioneers in an environment trying to kill them may not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but the...

Billed as "the most realistic flight simulation ever created," Airplane Mode promises all the thrills of a six-hour flight.

You can look out the window, work on a crossword puzzle, read the book you brought, and even watch movies on the screen in front of you.

The only unrealistic part is that the seat next to you isn't taken.

Of course, no game is complete without some kind of adversarial threat.

The developer promises randomized events each time you play.

You'll have to endure the agony of bad Wi-Fi, the mild inconvenience of delays, and the annoyance/empathy of listening to a crying baby.

The developer also promises a 2020 Steam launch.

Given that COVID-19 has made the already stressful flying experience an actively dangerous one, this game might feel pleasantly nostalgic by the time it's released.

TBD at Steam

The Bee Simulator trailer opens with a powerful promise: Become a bee.

What more could you ask for? Bees are great! They pollinate, they make honey, they live in cool hives.

In Bee Simulator, you'll do all that and help your extended bee family grow.

Plus, you get to look at a cute, fuzzy, lil' insect for the whole game.

You can become a bee on most major platforms.

PC players can purchase this swarming adventure from the Epic Games store.

$27.99 at Epic Games

SimCity may be the landmark franchise for the city-building genre, but the blunders of the 2013 SimCity release opened the door for new challengers to the throne. Cities: Skylines can't quite unseat SimCity's legacy out of the gate, but it's a fantastic addition to the genre that has become the de facto city-builder in the years since its release.

The idea is to grow your small town to a buzzing metropolis, monitoring population, happiness, and income.

Plan and build roads and neighborhoods with residences, and live the hectic life of a god-like city planner.

The basics for setting up a functional town aren't difficult to learn, but there are so many different buildings and amenities to master that making a truly efficient city takes time.

And that's before you take aesthetics into account—building a visually stunning city is half the fun.

Balancing optimal functionality with visual appeal is an absorbing challenge, as you'll want to make those sweeping highways that move traffic more effectively look grand, too.

The blank canvas of a new file is oddly invigorating, a chance to plan for mistakes that caused problems in your last city.

If you stick with Cities: Skylines and learn to be flexible with the tools, you'll eventually look back on your first attempts as archaic, and the only limit for your next design is your imagination.

Just don't forget to connect the plumbing.

$29.99 at Steam

Listen, we all want to bring about the end of days by learning the arcane mysteries of the forgotten powers that live beyond the veil.

But who among us is willing to follow the tentacle-drenched edicts, and pay the horrible price for that knowledge? In Cultist Simulator, you will.

This narrative-driven roguelike card game comes from the mind of Alexis Kennedy, whose previous games Sunless Sea and Fallen London mixed humor and horror into enthralling and atmospheric games.

Cultist Simulator is more stripped-down than those efforts, but has a similar depth and wit.

The roguelike elements will be familiar to any Sunless Sea players, so be ready to submit to madness.

Probably several times.

$19.99 at Steam

The frozen wastes near Mount St.

Somewhere call to your simulacrum and your digital dog sled team in Dog Sled Saga.

The game's goal is to manage your team of mushers and dogs, learning their unique working styles and growing to become a legendary dog sledder.

Most importantly, you can pet your simulated dogs.

This is really the most important part, and makes it the most significant piece of dog-sled related media since the Cuba Gooding Jr.

classic Snow Dogs.

$7.99 at Steam

Dwarf Fortress (or, rather, "Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress") is a labor of love spanning nearly two decades.

You take command of a generational colony of fantasy miners living in a mountain.

Construct new mines, dig new tunnels, and keep your dwarves whistling while they work with cats and a healthy family life.

And then wait for it to all go wrong.

Dwarf Fortress is known for its incredible complexity and difficulty, where a single mistake can lead to tragedy.

Tunneling too greedily and too deep can, for example, accidentally flood your dwarves' home when you hit some groundwater.

Famously unfinished and without an actual winning condition, each game is guaranteed to eventually collapse into spectacular failure.Dwarf Fortress recently had a Steam release, opening a new chapter for this storied fan favorite.

The Steam version ships with a custom tile set, in case you were sick of starring at an ASCII, but appears to stick close to its roots.

TBD at Steam

Ever wanted to just kick back, relax, and hit the (virtual) road? Euro Truck Simulator 2 offers exactly that, charging you with driving cargo from point A to point B across the European continent.

You can customize your vehicle, and even run a business for which you can purchase garages, trucks, and hire drivers.

You'll earn less for picking up scratches and other damage along the way, so try not to get distracted by the beautiful scenery.

Despite those features and goals, it's really all about the driving, a vehicle sim in the truest sense.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 is not a game for high-speed thrill seekers—you're meant to follow the rules of the road in your huge cargo vehicle—but something to zone out to at the end of a long day.

It may sound dull on paper, but its peaceful vibe and the ability to put on some tunes as you cruise the highway make for a surprisingly enjoyable experience.

Finally, a game that delivers on the promise of the masterful Desert Bus.

$19.99 at Steam

If you enjoyed Stardew Valley but didn't like all that pesky relationship and story crap, and you also really love Euro Truck, then consider Farming Simulator 19.

Proving that it really does take all kinds, this game lets you tackle a variety of crops (from sunflowers to soybeans to lumber) and bring them to market.

If animal husbandry is more your thing, try raising cows, chickens, pigs, or sheep.

You can even tackle the difficulties of modern agrarian life with up to 16 other players in the online co-op mode.

This entry in the series offers improved graphics, new locations in the US and Europe, and hundreds of authentic farming vehicles.

Farming Simulator also finally lets you keep horses—at last.If you really love this title, consider dropping an additional $250 on Logitech's custom hardware controllers for the game.

If there's one thing we love more than tediously precise simulators, its tediously precise hardware for those simulators.

You may have to wait, a bit though...it's on backorder!

$24.99 at Steam

The Great Recession really did a number on all of us, and this House Flipper simulator certainly seems to be a byproduct of that cultural experience.

Start by purchasing a dilapidated house (in what appears to be an otherwise nice neighborhood), and then turn it into a dream home for big bucks.

Like the PC building simulator we explore elsewhere, House Flipper seems to put a lot of its stock into agonizing realism.

You'll have to rewire those sockets, change the fuses, and clean the windows before you can hand over the keys to a buyer.

But the game also features a dollhouse-like interior design mode.

If you've ever played The Sims just so you could build a cool house, this will certainly appeal.

If you're a fan of house flipping and also a fan of Football Simulator, consider the forthcoming Stadium Renovator.

It's just like house flipping, but with way more chairs and AstroTurf.

$17.99 at Steam

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes depicts that tense, Hollywood moment where the hero must defuse a bomb based on instructions provided over radio.

Several players have different sets of (lengthy) instructions for bomb defusal that may, or may not, relate to the bomb the defuser sees.

The defuser needs to not only defuse the bomb, but describe it adequately so the rest of the players can tell him what to do.

Keep Talking reminds me of Spaceteam, in that it requires participants to communicate in real time outside the game.

Also like Spaceteam, the crux of the game is as much about reflexes as it is about communication; each player has some piece of information another one needs.

It's very clever, and worth your time if you're interested in adding some hilarious stress to your next dinner party.

$14.99 at Steam

Dubbed an "economic RTS" by its creators, Offworld Trading Company challenges you to build a Martian colony whose survival depends on its economic success.

Buy and sell your way to victory while a real-time commodities market ticks away in the background.

This setting makes the forces of unchecked capitalism as deadly as the cold vacuum of space.

Offworld might be one of the more fantastical simulations in our list.

As such, it would be easy to discount.

But consider that players have to play a StarCraft-style RTS while also watching the price of 13 different resources constantly fluctuate on their screens.

If that doesn't pass the wonkiness threshold for our brand of niche game, we don't know what does.

$29.99 at Steam

The glorious republic of Arstotzka is having a bit of an immigration problem, and it's up to you, a border agent, to quickly and accurately assess the validity of each visa request in the darkly comedic Papers, Please.

As the political situation changes, so do the requirements at the border crossing.

You'll have to quickly peruse all the documents and decide whether to allow each person to pass.

All the while, you need to bring in enough money to feed and house your family, and choose between counterrevolutionary behavior and starvation.

This game will not only challenge your abilities as a player, but also force you to make terrible choices between your personal morals and playing by the rules of the game.

Have fun!

$9.99 at Steam

In PC Building Simulator you build simulated PCs.

Hence the name.

Choose your components, pick your case, and power on your dream battle station.

You want lights? You got it.

You want liquid cooling and brand tie-ins from major names in the industry? It's all here.

You want simulated 3D benchmark tests and a repair mode where you run virtual antivirus? That's here, but why you're asking about it makes us a little worried.

There's more than just high-end product-placement wish fulfillment in PC Building Simulator, though.

The developer claims that part of the game is to learn about the components and how to actually put them together.

It's edu-tainment!

What we find so intriguing about this particular title is its bewildering reflection-of-a-reflection-of-a-reflection sensibility.

The idea of using a gaming PC to build another gaming PC and then boot up that gaming PC to use a simulation of an operating system approaches Philip K.

Dick-level absurdity.

$19.99 at Steam

RimWorld is a sci-fi colony-building sim, where you must make a hostile planet home for your colonists.

Managing a host of eccentric pioneers in an environment trying to kill them may not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but the...