Zachtronics games don't emulate the horror of the ACTUAL programming experience. They distill away a ton of the most tedious, frustrating aspects (and the just-less-relevant-to-most-programmers'-interests ones, like UI design) and let you focus on the funnest parts: system design and optimization.

In fact, I would argue there is no more efficient, effective, or pleasurable way to practice system design skills specifically than games like Factorio, Shapez.io, Mindustry, and the Zachtronics catalog