Hard Chip News

Greetings, Hard Chip players!

Hard Chip is kicking off its very first 4-Week Challenge Event, starting May 24 at 18:00 UTC. Whether you’re a circuit-wrangler or a transistor-tinkerer, this is your chance to test your skills in a weekly gauntlet of logic puzzles.




[h2]How It Works[/h2]

Weekly Stages
Every Saturday at 18:00 UTC, a brand-new challenge drops. You’ll have exactly one week to build, optimize, and submit your solution before the next stage unlocks.

Progress Tracking
Visit the Leaderboard section on hardchip.io to track real-time rankings and progression bars for each stage.

Exclusive Reward
At the end of four weeks, the Top five players on the overall leaderboard will receive a special editor background to display in the editor. And the Top 3 will get a Steam key to offer to a friend!


[h2]Why Join?[/h2]

Push Your Limits — Each week’s requirements ramp up in complexity, challenging creative approaches to transistor budgets and layout. This will be hard!

Community Rivalry — Watch your rank climb (or scramble!) in real time and see how you stack up against fellow chip-smiths.

Prize — Top 5 players will get the special editor background! Top 3 players will get a Steam key to offer Hard Chip to a friend!

Limited-Time Sale! — To celebrate this new event, Hard Chip will be on sale for the first 2 days starting Sat, May 24, 6 PM UTC. Now is the best time to grab the game!


[h2]How to Join?[/h2]

Main menu -> 4 Weeks Challenge — Upon finishing the Inverter stage, you can access the event from the main menu!



Dive into the first challenge: the 3-bit Majority Function and show off those logic skills May 24 at 18:00 UTC!

Greetings, Hard Chip players!  
 
It's time for another update, and this one comes with exciting improvements! Localization efforts continue to expand, with Spanish, German, and Russian now added to the language lineup. Also introducing our first video tutorials to help you master complex building techniques and numerous quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. Let's dive into what's new in versions 0.1.6.81 to 0.1.6.89!  
 


[h2]1. NEW Languages - German, Spanish, and Russian Support![/h2]

Last update brought French to Hard Chip, and now I'm adding three more languages to the roster! You can now play Hard Chip in German, Spanish, and Russian, with special thanks to helpful players for contributing.


Language settings have been made more accessible too - you can now choose your preferred language (English, French, Russian, German or Spanish) directly from the first Early Access Modal when starting the game.

🌍 Changelog:
- NEW German localization
- NEW Russian localization (thanks to a helpful player)!
- TSL Spanish pass (edit in settings.txt to test it, and come on HC's discord server if you see errors!)
- TSL Library section localized with current existing languages, en, fr, de, ru
- UX Choose the locale (English, French or Russian) directly into the first EarlyAccessModal
- MI Settings language selection touch-ups
- TSL Settings labels touch-ups
- TSL Translations touch-ups
- TSL French errors fix
- TSL Touch-ups and fixes
- FIX Grade not properly saved in chip maps in French
- FIX Localization not working in the main menu demo



[h2]2. NEW Video Tutorials and Enhanced Guidance[/h2]

I've watched some content creators about some of the more challenging techniques in Hard Chip, and I decided to include a stack to read small videos. Excited to introduce our first video tutorial! This is the first of many more to come, designed to help you discover building techniques like overhanging structures faster.


🎓 Changelog:
- NEW Video modal tip to show how to overhang build (first of many help that will be given by small videos to come)
- MI Video player boilerplate
- UX Adding a wiggle to tips for suggesting dismissing modal
- FIX Undismissable tips on 150% UI scale and specific resolution
- FIX Always on early access modal



[h2]3. Simulation Improvements and Anti-Cheese Measures[/h2]

I continue to refine Hard Chip's simulation engine, making it more robust and accurate. This update includes several important simulation enhancements to improve stability, performance, and better handle edge cases. I've also addressed some "cheese" techniques in specific challenges to ensure they work as intended.

⚡ Changelog:
- SIM Validation process waits for MOS to settle before moving to next steps (no floating gate and buffered response type exploit)
- SIM Minor performance optimizations
- SIM Collapsing front waves next to a transistor can result in a wrongly persisting state in a block (now fixed)
- FIX 4BitFullBitAdder cheese
- FIX Cheese 8bit Value InverterChallenge (some players may have to rerun this challenge to guarantee their blueprint is a functioning part)
- PERF Remove greedy verification check, 1-10% faster depending on cases



[h2]4. Leaderboard[/h2]

The hardchip.io website now has a leaderboard to keep track of lastest high score and so on. This is a first draft but it's already very handy!


Go to hardchip.io/leaderboard to check it out!



[h2]Quality Of Life, Bug, and Crash fixes list[/h2]

I've improved the user experience and simulation system, making Hard Chip more intuitive and responsive. From camera control fixes to performance optimizations, these changes will make your design process smoother and more enjoyable.

🛠️ Changelog:
- NEW Probes can be created with up to 32 bits
- COPY "Trace" block now is "Metal" block
- UX Camera weird counter rotations fix
- UX Center image on the schematic viewer
- UX Online/Offline indicator on the performance report
- UX Confusing "Cycle UI" and soft lock out any interface ux path with hotkey is unknown
- MI Show the name of current HCDrive when installed
- MI Settings to disable the horizontal scroll
- UI Same Gameplay settings tab from Main menu and Pause menu
- FIX Output bit shifted up top
- FIX Not constant terminals when new chip from Library
- FIX Horizontal scroll on alt tab
- FIX Shift+Tab overlap with default Tab next slot
- FIX Best labels absent from performance report
- FIX HCDrive import erasing names for 'NetImport'
- FIX Potential crash
- FIX Experimental 200UI back
- DEV Some code cleanup and faster build times
- MI Using stage files for bonus stage (vs hardcoded)
- MI Local snapshot scores updated with 05-04 data

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Work on improving Hard Chip continues, and your feedback remains invaluable! I'm especially interested in hearing from players who can help us expand our language support even further. If you notice any translation errors in the new languages, please don't hesitate to report them on our Discord server.

Thank you for playing Hard Chip, and stay tuned for more exciting updates and features in the coming weeks!