The Chromatic Game of Life

Based on John Conway's
Game of Life

Instructions:

Click in the squares within the field on the left to set up the initial state. Clicking on the squares will turn a cell "active" or live, as indicated by it turning darkest green.

Then, specify how many Cycles the Game will iterate. Each time the program iterates or "cycles", the rules of the Game of Life will be applied, and the new state will be updated. Click the cycle button to get the iterations to start going automatically.

My version of the Game of Life uses lighter shades of green to indicate where future cells will become active or "live". For instance, cells which will become live within the next 5 cycles are shown in deep green, slightly lighter than the darkest green. The 5 cylces after that are shown in medium green. The 5 cycles after that are shown in light green. And, the 5 cycles after that are depicted in lightest green.

This predictive modification of the display interface can allow you to rapidly see whether your initial pattern configuration is going to continue showing life-like behavior or whether it's going to rapidly fall into a static or single-cycle repeating state.

There are a number of simple, basic patters which researchers have identified since the Game of Life was first invented. Probably the best-known is the "Glider". A glider is a grouping composed of 5 active cells. When the rules of the Game are iterated, the glider births new live cells on one side at the same rate that cells die on the opposite, causing the grouping to steadily move across the field. Gliders are interesting because they will move indefinitely, so long as their trek doesn't cause them to collide with any other groupings of cells.

Some cellular automata researchers use collisions of gliders with each other and other objects to create or "program" complex patterns and living objects.

Here's a brief animation of how a glider will appear in my Chromatic version of the Game of Life: