Throughput

Throughput is a city simulation in which you shape a city to raise its Throughput and reach Euphoric mode. Its simulation runs to an electronic soundtrack: the clock measures tempo rather than time, and the simulation ticks every four bars. Traffic flows on eighth notes, while overloaded streets pulse red together on the half. Traffic is modeled as network flow, so changes to the city quickly affect how it operates.

Boom and correction

Hold Throughput high long enough and the city enters Euphoric mode. The tempo rises from 130 to 174, and the simulation runs faster with the music. For one song, nothing can die. Afterward, the market corrects: cells with unmet needs begin to Degenerate, and the damage can run deep enough that simply replacing what was lost will not restore the boom.

You can revive a declining city with more careful stimulus, such as placing an industrial district beside a neighborhood short of work. Boom and correction take the place of the bank balance used by other city builders to represent economics. The threshold for the next Euphoric mode rises along a logarithmic curve, so the same pressure applies from your first 20 residents through your seven-thousandth.

Aura and growth

Aura spreads across the map. Busy, mixed traffic on surface streets makes a neighborhood lively, while industry and traffic damage the ground around them. Parks can help hold Degeneration back, but a park with negative Aura makes the problem worse. You can pursue Throughput or build a small, stable town with a positive Aura; pushing for Euphoric mode can also leave the city buried in negative Aura afterward.

As new needs arise, the city develops new infrastructure: avenues when a street first runs hot, subways when commutes grow long, and highways when you first reach Euphoric mode. Schools lead to offices, offices ship software, and software creates demand for an internet.

The late game

Eventually, the game offers a data center. It produces vast amounts of software while needing very few people. After hours spent building up the city, the data center marks a point where it no longer needs bodies, leaving you to decide what to do about that.

Controls and soundtrack

The controls are designed to become intuitive. Z undoes any action, and holding Shift lays roads in a grid. The game uses a saturated, vector-bright, deliberately abstract visual style and an original soundtrack spanning a range of electronic music.