And I was expecting a lot more detail from the OP article considering it made the HN front page, but it pretty much comes down to, the game works on a 16-frame cycle, where 1 cycle it may handle crime stuff, another frame handles fire and disaster stuff, etc. No more details about what happens within 1 of those frames, or anything else, beyond 5 cycle function names. And the source is at https://www.donhopkins.com/home/micropolis/