There are only three certainties in life – death, taxes, and Capetonians talking about how bad the traffic has become these past few years.

Seriously, it starts as early as 2PM on a Friday and all it takes is one car to break down and…

Sorry, I dozed off whilst typing that, because it’s a conversation you’ve no doubt had before.

Back in the day, games like The Sims became incredibly popular for letting you control someone’s life from start to finish, and I guess the natural progression eventually ends in a game that lets you control the traffic.

Here’s The Verge with more on Traffix:

Each level of Traffix puts you in control of an intersection or group of intersections and asks you to manually control the traffic signals until a specified number of white cars leaves the area. How you control the lights couldn’t be more simple. By default, all of the lights are set to red, stopping all cars and trucks. Tapping or clicking a traffic light once lets a single vehicle through, while tapping twice lets all vehicles through until you hit it again to change the light back to red.

Aside from making sure that the right number of vehicles leaves the stage, you also need to avoid causing crashes and making a vehicle wait too long at a traffic light. Racking up 10 of those in a single level causes you to fail and start over. At first, this seems simple enough to avoid. But as the game progresses, it introduces new intersections with more complicated layouts, as well as traffic that you have no control over, including trains and sometimes planes.

You have to manage your time between looking at traffic, an ever-growing lineup of cars that are stopped at your lights, or deciding what lights need to be signaled and when.

I’m not here to judge your idea of a good time, so let’s just dive straight into the game’s trailer:

Now it’s clearly not for everyone, but there is actually quite a bit to the gameplay, which at first looks a little one-dimensional:

What really makes Traffix interesting are the levels. Even though you are effectively doing the same thing in each stage, the game manages to construct interesting environmental puzzles. Each one gives a different feel to how you solve the level. It’s almost like you have to reset your understanding of game, as each scenario requires a different approach to complete the stage. It does this all without changing anything about the game’s simple mechanics.

Stunning.

Us Capetonians even feature, although the level is locked because it’s one of the harder ones, and you have to work your way up to it:

No word on whether you have to fork out R10 every time you park anywhere, even for the briefest of moments, after someone with a lumo yellow vest suddenly appears at your window.

Maybe it’s an in-app purchase.

Traffix was created by Infinity Games, and you can find it on the iOS App Store and on the Google Play Store for Android.

It should take around two to four hours to finish, or the same amount of time it takes you to get home on a Friday leaving Cape Town after it’s rained and there’s a car broken down.

[source:verge]