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Show HN: I made a game where you build a CPU from logic gates
I built ChipBuilder to make computer architecture more approachable through interactive puzzles.
You start with basic logic gates like AND, OR, and NOT, then gradually combine them into adders, multiplexers, memory, an ALU, and eventually a complete CPU. Once you've built the hardware, you can write assembly programs that run on the processor you created.
The game is inspired by courses like Nand2Tetris, but everything runs directly in the browser with a visual circuit editor, simulations, and progressively harder challenges.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- shadab_khan_127 3mo agoI like it, it's fun Why you decided to keep wire button on top ? can't we do something like clicking on the dot will trigger wireing
- laurentiurad 3mo agoA good point. I will change it!
- azatom 3mo agoyou maybe not select accidental but others do: user-select: none;
- sebastiansm7 3mo agoI wasn't able to wire the inputs to the gate, so my career at ChipCorp ended at level 1. Also it would ne nice to have a level zero where you create the gates from transistors.
- azatom 3mo ago-1: build transistor from atoms -2: ... :) (ofc the UI could be more simpler but I've found the wiring)
- karolist 3mo ago-4: initiate a Big Bang to generate the spacetime substrate
- jbgrt 3mo agoThe game you're looking for is Turing Complete https://turingcomplete.game/ https://turingcomplete.game/
- Elorth 3mo agoWant transistor logic? Hard Chip on Steam. Starts you at NMOS and PMOS and lets you build up from there.
- mrkO99 3mo agoGot stuck at the NAND gate level.
- prologic 3mo agoStick with it! Hint: A NAND gate is an AND + NOT circuit. It outputs a 0 when both inputs are a 1, otherwise outputs a 1.
- namero999 3mo agoSame, I built a correctly-working AND gate made only of NAND gates but the tests don't pass.
- Kirby64 3mo agoThe SR latch logic is also incorrect. Cross-coupled NORs had to be configured illogically to actually pass the tests and output correctly. Also, the later puzzles (starting with memory) don't have any real tests. Seems like it just doesn't really exist past that point.
- asterisk_man 3mo agoWhat configuration did you use to pass the test? I guess I couldn't think illogically enough.
- Kirby64 3mo agoI removed one of the cross coupled outputs (only one NOR was connected to the other, not both outputs cross coupled) and magically it worked. Didn’t make any sense from a logic perspective though.
- jpl56 3mo ago[dead]
- 1718627440 3mo agoWould be nice to be able to skip the first levels, because learning an AND gate is not necessarily what everyone needs as first steps, regarding their skill level.
- laurentiurad 3mo agoNoted. Will add a skip mechanism too.
- serhack_ 3mo agowasn't there recently another game that was starting with mosfet/pmos?
- uranoxyd 3mo agoI'm not sure if this is what you mean, but Zachtronics has a minigame in its game "Last Call BBS" where you have to build ICs at the silicon level. www.zachtronics.com
- prologic 3mo agoThis is cool! I like it! Let's see if I can get past the NAND level!
- prologic 3mo agoI got all the way to a Full Adder and got stuck, then lost my progress :/
- agent_z 3mo agoI wonder how people go through building such a project without ever hearing about NANDGame or Turing Complete.
- baron3dl 3mo agoFor the lazy, here's a link https://www.nandgame.com/ https://www.nandgame.com/ When I played through this last year it was surprising how much came back to me from the courses I took in college, and haven't touched at all in 20 years.
- vivzkestrel 3mo agoi havent been able to clear level 1 of nandgame , i dont know how to make that switch work on all 4 truth tables
- dirkc 3mo agoThis immediately made me think of nand2tetris.org, but as a game. Is that what NANDGame is?
- falcor84 3mo agoYes, pretty much, but stopping at the cpu level (about the first half of the course).
- ChickeNES 3mo agoOr Silicon Zeroes, or MHRD, or a bunch of other games that do the same thing.
- drob518 3mo agoDoesn’t handle drag and drop on iPad.
- xpct 3mo agoLooks very similar to the GPU game https://jaso1024.com/mvidia/ https://jaso1024.com/mvidia/
- wateralien 3mo agoVery nice. Tips: You don't need the different design states (select, wire, delete) just have one and make it work contextually. Also remove the play button. Just have it always playing.
- laurentiurad 3mo agoThank you for the feedback! Will implement it today
- wateralien 2mo agoJust checked. Looking good!
- ksdme9 3mo agoSince I don't see it mentioned here, Turning Complete is also a game along the same lines and really fun. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1444480/Turing_Complete/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1444480/Turing_Complete/ I have gotten my nephew into it with some success as well.
- prologic 3mo agoThat links has an invalid or expired cert. EDIT: Thanks for fixing the link!
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- dahart 3mo agoWorks for me without issues. Unless it was edited, I assume the Steam Store is pretty unlikely to have expired or invalid certs.
- dahart 3mo agoTuring Complete was super fun and is amazing. It felt like a years worth of computer engineering class packed into a week’s worth of well designed gameplay. IIRC someone built a working 32 bit RISC-V CPU with it. (Maybe this one? https://github.com/BenjaminSchaaf/turning-complete-riscv https://github.com/BenjaminSchaaf/turning-complete-riscv) My child just informed me that Turing Complete has just released a major redesign and that the engine is even faster than before.
- splittydev 3mo agoCool idea, but having to switch between select and wire makes this incredibly tedious to use. Just use wire mode from dragging from a connection and let people draw "away" a wire from a connection and let go to delete it? Would be much more intuitive imo.
- prologic 3mo agoTo the author of this; Are you able to make it save your progress so you can come back and continue playing?
- sk1pper 3mo agoI went through Turing Complete up to a working CPU and found it incredibly fun. I then went on to build my own RV32I (simplest RISC-V instruction set) core in Verilog - if you keep a simple single-cycle design, it doesn’t end up being super complicated and not a ton of code. I’d recommend the exercise for anyone wanting to learn about how CPUs work. Also, for people interested in this type of thing, look up Ben Eater’s 6502 videos. Wiring up a 6502 (old microprocessor) to ROM and RAM on a breadboard; later he builds a “world’s worst video card” - more like a VGA display output card, still pretty cool.
- XorNot 3mo ago+1 for Turing Complete, it's absolutely marvelous.
- octobus2021 3mo agoMy 14 year old son went further in the Turing Complete, where the game shows you how to "invent" Assembly language, and he completed couple challenges after that (like writing Assembly program to make a robot controlled by the computer you built in the game solve a randomly generated maze). FYI the author started publishing updates again; looks like he took 2 years to rebuild the game from the ground up and instead of launching it as "Turing Complete 2" he chose to simply publish it as breaking update, and is now continuing with updates to add features.
- ura_yukimitsu 3mo agoThat's a cool idea for a game, but the UX feels quite unintuitive and unpolished to me which discouraged me from playing past the first couple of levels. A few suggestions, if I may: - You should be able to drag/drop elements from the sidebar onto the canvas - Wiring shouldn't be a separate tool, and you should be able to drag/drop wires instead of having to click on the two endpoints separately - You should be able to delete the currently selected gate with the delete key, and the "delete" button in the toolbar should delete the currently selected gate instead of it being a separate tool - There's not enough contrast between the grid pattern and the background of the canvas - There seems to be some problems with moving overlapping components - There's no way to move around the canvas - The progress doesn't seem to save and there's no way to skip levels
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- artemonster 3mo agopretty interesting that such lazy slop vibecoded into existence by "a software engineer passionate about well-crafted products."
- orphea 3mo agoOh, I recognize the author's nickname. The guy is using HN to promote his vibe-coded projects. It is such a shame that the words "passion" and "well-crafted" are being actively devalued.
- 1718627440 3mo ago"well-crafted" does not imply anything about the feature set or the ease of use.
- laurentiurad 3mo agoThanks a lot for your time in providing the feedback! I think every point is valid so will try to implement them.
- artemonster 3mo agoSlop. very janky UI
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- vitorfblima 3mo agoForgive me if I'm wrong, but I just can't look at "AI aesthetics" anymore.
- laurentiurad 3mo agoThanks for the feedback! I am curious what made you think it's AI? My experience with using LLMs is that they usually use dark mode + neon + gradient a lot, but nothing like the design you see on my website. I'd highly appreciate if you share what elements you thought as being vibecoded or made with AI.
- AspisAiantos 3mo agoI like this idea a lot! I think that there are a few small details that would improve the user experience if you're looking for feedback. 1. Please please please apply `user-select: none;` to everything within the circuit canvas. Almost more often than not I would end up dragging text that had been highlighted rather than any of the actual gates or inputs. 2. Having to switch between 'select', 'wire', and 'delete' modes is a bit cumbersome. 3. Absolutely no progress seems to be saved on navigation or page reload. I've completed the first level several times and if I go anywhere else or reload after completing it, the site shows zero levels completed and shows the tutorial again.
- laurentiurad 3mo agoThanks a lot! Will do!
- rho4 3mo ago3 next clicks in missing a back button
- kovacs_x 3mo agoSo ICFP 2026..
- Kirby64 3mo ago> You start with basic logic gates like AND, OR, and NOT, then gradually combine them into adders, multiplexers, memory, an ALU, and eventually a complete CPU. Once you've built the hardware, you can write assembly programs that run on the processor you created. No you don’t. Once you get to memory you no longer have any tests that do anything and it’s impossible to actually progress.
- rsprinkle 3mo agoWow, sounds identical to "Turing Complete".
- jodacola 3mo agoReally cool. I'm enjoying this. One bit of feedback: I'd love to be able to stare at the tests while I'm playing around with the logic gates; every time I switch to the tests tab then click around on the "board," the tabs switch back.
- aappleby 3mo agoWhy does "Browse" at the top take me to what looks like a scam shopping site? The "Pipelining" level is completely broken - big completely empty grid, no components to place, and you actually think you're going to learn _pipelining_ in a _schematic editor_? This is a vibe-coded slop project. Not interested.
- aappleby 3mo agoOh lord, I went to the "ALU" example, did absolutely nothing, clicked "Run Tests" - YOU WIN You didn't test this thing at all, did you?
- laurentiurad 3mo agoI really don't appreciate this Reddit-like snarky attitude and I usually do not respond to people like you and to ill-intentioned messages like this one, but this time I will, since you accuse me of scamming people, which is a big deal. The post is about the game. When clicking on the Browse button and assuming you can read, you will see a collection of well-crafted products. I am not selling those myself. The website does not process payments, does not ask for donations, nothing like that. Saying that the ALU example does not have tests is just a lie. I am not sure if you are a liar, or just frustrated about something, or maybe you're having a bad day, but for a person bragging about being an ex-employeeID at a big-tech firm and a GH-contribution-green-dots chaser, you should be more humble and think twice before accusing someone of doing illegal stuff.
- tda 3mo agoReminds of Digital Logic Sim by Sebastian Lague, which I really like as you start with just a NAND gate and go from there. https://sebastian.itch.io/digital-logic-sim https://sebastian.itch.io/digital-logic-sim
- octobus2021 3mo agoI have no comment about this particular product, its features or its author, you can read other comments if you want. I advise the readers to check out not only Nand2Tetris but also Turing Complete game on Steam (and hopefully back on GOG at some point). The author came back to it and started posting updates a few months ago after almost 2 year silence. He rebuilt the engine with a huge performance boost and is now adding more and more features. Not affiliated with him in any way, just think the game is great and his dedication to it deserves respect.
- anonymousiam 3mo agoLast year I remember playing a similar game where you design a CPU beginning with SSI gates, building flip flops, registers, adders, multiplexers, etc. It was fun doing this because I hadn't done any digital design for a few decades, but near the end it became frustrating because it forced you to use only certain variants of modules, which you had to adapt for the final integration. It would have been more fun if it was flexible enough to let you create your own variants and use those. This game seems to have a similar limitation.
- astaka 3mo agoThis is prettry cool, if we have this 30 years ago, I would love my computer science class...QAQ..
- rezigned 3mo agoThis is a really nice project!
- vivzkestrel 3mo ago- added to my list of stier blogs, here are some entries from it - https://jaso1024.com/mvidia/ https://jaso1024.com/mvidia/ same thing but done differently - https://nandgame.com/ https://nandgame.com/ everyone knows this one - https://radarlaboratory.com/ https://radarlaboratory.com/ shows how radar works like your game
- cadeos 3mo agoGreat idea, get it in front of the kids ASAP!
- hddambo 3mo agoThis is SO cool! What a great way to learn. I agree with some comments that it has a bit of a learning curve, and feel a little more "game like"? Still very cool though.