This game is quite different from Conway's Game of Life because it's not deterministic. During a turn, cells will rely on Math.random to find whether to move or divide; the direction that the cell move into is also randomized.
Cool to watch, though this is a fairly straightforward model of complex contagion on a finite grid. It's similar to Conway's Game of Life in that there's a grid and local rules, but beyond that, the nature of the rules results in a different kind of behavior.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_contagion" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_contagion</a><p><a href="http://www.ladamic.com/netlearn/NetLogo4/DiffusionCompetition.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ladamic.com/netlearn/NetLogo4/DiffusionCompetitio...</a>
Selfish feature requests:<p>+Better color scheme by default makes it easier on the eyes than full-saturation RED, GREEN, MAGENTA
+Pick from existing colors to draw new cells
+Time-series charts of per-color population counts
+Draw on chart with default pointer instead of text select
+Reset to default button<p>Overall this is really interesting to look at. It doesn't really seem like it's that close to Conway's Game of Life, but it's an interesting nonetheless.
reminds me a lot of an old multiplayer network game called "liquid war"<p><a href="http://www.ufoot.org/liquidwar" rel="nofollow">http://www.ufoot.org/liquidwar</a><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj65vUy3rK8" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj65vUy3rK8</a>
Seems as if pretty much every state is a steady state. Would be interesting if some were predators and others prey, with some feature that allows them to "starve"
I coded nearly the same game as a Java desktop application in 2009. Can't find the binary anymore though. It's lots of fun if you can tune some parameters, like make one species more fertile (reproduces every time, while others reproduce only 50% of the time into empty space, etc), more aggressive (can consume when surrounds an enemy from only two sides), or more strategic (tries to make sure not to get its fighting line broken up by a lucky enemy).
I made a video on how to "win" at Automata with minimalist moves:<p><a href="http://youtu.be/hQhXFHmXDaA" rel="nofollow">http://youtu.be/hQhXFHmXDaA</a>
The big surprise to me is that stability is possible in this game. Most of these games end in less than 60 seconds. The first several games I let run had unstable dynamics: one side gained an advantage and grew and grew until it took over the whole board, usually in less than a minute. But later, through experimentation, I found that stability is possible.<p>The corners seem to be especially stable. I waited until the game had consolidated to 3 colors, then I created 4 new colors and added them to the corners (I slowed the game down to 500,000 milliseconds so I could have time to paint the corners, then I went back to 30 milliseconds). With 4 corners held weakly by 4 colors, and 3 large colors holding the center, the game is remarkably stable. I watched it, in the background, for several hours. One of the corners disappeared, but the other 3 corners held on. I went off to bed. In the morning, 2 more of the corners had been swallowed, but 1 of them still survived. These 4 surviving colors have been battling now for over 24 hours. The game has reached equilibrium.
If you put a 4 x 8 purple block in the center of each color, the outcome will always be purple taking over the entire map. It seems like a fairly complex, and similar tactics in Go can achieve victory (victory being purple overtaking the map).
Interesting. In this simulation, fighting on multiple fronts is optimal because then no single enemy can surround you. Funny. Leads to drawing along the borders being more significant than drawing within a solid colour block.
Sugarscape is another interesting cellular automata model.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarscape" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarscape</a>
There is something wrong with the game, the sum of the number of cells of each color is not constant.<p>Also it for some reason got almost impossible to paint the board one color; beginning was easy enough. A splash was enough. Somehow the "end-game" is nearly impossible to complete. The very frustrating input method does not help the least.<p>Otherwise, nice idea!
Ooh! Awesome :)<p>I've got some similar demos for rileyjshaw.com/terra that I haven't thrown up yet, I'll see if I get a chance to this week. One fun advantage of doing this in Terra is that it supports periodic boundaries (meaning that there aren't any "safe" edges)
The same effect could be achieved by taking a low resolution image and each turn, making each pixel the color of a random neighbor. The only thing this has to do with the Game of Life is both can be simulated by copying one array to another and applying some simple rules.
It's interesting dumping groups of cells into different parts of the board and seeing how it reacts - a group in the middle of one color gets absorbed quickly, a group along the border of several colors hangs on for much longer, etc.
Nice! I made something similar except it was more about how people are influenced by ideas of people around them and less about violence. link: <a href="http://goo.gl/H0Wqxo" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/H0Wqxo</a>
Without pausing, just by rapidly adding pink cells at the borders between two colours, it is possible to make one of them go extinct.<p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/q2OIJNh.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/q2OIJNh.png</a>
5 minutes:<p>The hordes of Lime Green grow stronger every second. We face a growing threat from the Blacks and the Blues to the east. I shall fight for a few more minutes.<p>10 minutes:<p>We face complete annihilation from the unstoppable growth from Blacks. Lime Green horde is nearly decimated, it was only a few minutes ago they seemed unstoppable.<p>15 minutes:<p>Lime Green have been completely annihilated! We are caught between the epic battle between Blacks and Blues. I rest for a few minutes.<p>20 minutes:<p>We are caught in a stalemate with the Blacks. The eastern front bears the crushing weight of Blues onslaught of attacks and raids. The night is getting cold, we are tired.