Metaroot and Kerzoven Announce Playable Demo of If Red Then Stop! ~ Chalgyr's Game Room

Zurich, Switzerland - September 9, 2026 | Metaroot and Kerzoven are pleased to announce the release of the first playable demo version of If Red Then Stop, a programming game in which you learn how to program real traffic lights, barriers, and other traffic machinery, as part of the Steam Programming Fest.

About If Red Then Stop:

Program traffic lights, barriers, and more to solve your city’s traffic problems! Improve your coding skills by learning to control time-dependent processes with realistic state machines.

But If Red Then Stop did not originally start as a game.

Before the project took its current form, the Studio Kerzoven had already created an educational application for universities, where engineering students could learn state automation by programming traffic lights with state machines.

The idea of turning that educational prototype into a full game came around the release of another programming game: The Farmer Was Replaced. Publisher Metaroot, which was publishing The Farmer Was Replaced, saw the potential for another game that could make a real programming concept approachable and fun. Knowing that Kerzoven already had the university prototype, Metaroot approached the team with the idea that this could be the right moment to turn it into a proper game.

Kerzoven took that original learning tool and began developing it into what is now If Red Then Stop. The game was revealed alongside the 1.0 release of The Farmer Was Replaced in October 2025, a release that went on to become a major success.

Now, almost one year later, players can get their first hands-on look at the result.

The first playable demo of If Red Then Stop introduces the fundamentals of state machines across six levels. Players build state sequences, control traffic lights and other infrastructure, and gradually tackle more complex traffic situations, while trying to keep cars, pedestrians, and eventually entire systems moving without bringing the city to a standstill.

About Kerzoven:

Team Kerzoven, a small team based in Switzerland, comprises six members: Marco Burri, Iris Wippich, Manuel Wirth, Wayne Hintermann, Raoul Zander and Denise Hohl. Their passion lies in creating deeply simulated games where the players can learn more about reality. After they released their first game Of Life and Land in 2025, a city builder parired with a rich nature simlation, Team Kerzoven started working on its second game, If Red Then Stop. If Red Then Stop was a labor of love from an older project from team founder and automation engineer Marco Burri, and was inspired by his frustration with a new traffic light system on his commute that was causing major problems.

About Metaroot:

Metaroot is a family-owned micropublisher based in Zurich, Switzerland. The company has published the programming game “The Farmer Was Replaced”, the roguelike restaurant sim "Goblin Sushi", the Tetris-like city puzzler “River Towns”, the steampunk auto-shooter “Airships: Lost Flotilla”, and the nature simulation game “Of Life and Land.”

Article by: Susan N.