Minecraft Maps / Redstone Device

John Conway's Game Of Life!

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Bertiecrafter
Retired Moderator
Level 71 : Legendary Engineer
790
Hello,
I finally managed to create John Conway's Game Of Life in Minecraft!

In the 2D grid, you draw dots by dropping grass, all grass blocks are "alive".
You can remove the closest dot by dropping dirt, all dirt blocks are "dead".

The "game" resets itself if you drop bedrock on the ground.
The "game" starts when you go in spectator.
The "game" finishes the current cycle and then stops when you go back into creative.
(F3 + N for gamemode toggle).

Just like Langton's Ant, in each cycle things get checked, updated and a new cycle gets initiated.
The rules for the ant were simple: Check the colour, rotate and change colour based on the original colour, move on and start a new cycle. John Conway's Game Of Life is a bit more difficult, the rules are:
- All alive cells die if they have 1 or less neighbours, as if caused by underpopulation.
- All alive cells die if they have 4 or more neighbours, as if caused by overpopulation.
- Needless to say, all other alive cells with 2 or 3 neighbours survive.
- All dead cells come to life if they have exactly 3 neighbours, as if caused by reproduction.

Boring right?
No! With this simple mechanic, all the way from 1970, amazing "ecosystems" or "machines" have been created. Although I have listed all items on the Wikipedia page, your imagination is the limit and I dare you to come up with an amazing pattern and share it with me or the community. Also, I have not recreated all known patterns in minecraft. If you want to create one of the patterns that I didn't do myself, go ahead and google for it!
[spoiler="Still Lifes" (Static)]
John Conway's Game Of Life! Minecraft Map
Block

John Conway's Game Of Life! Minecraft Map
Beehive

John Conway's Game Of Life! Minecraft Map
Example of what you can do to the beehive


Loaf


Boat


Tub


Example of what you can do to the tub
[/spoiler]
[spoiler="Oscillators" (Stable)]

Blinker (2 frames)


Toad (2 frames)


Beacon (2 frames)


Cool pattern, inspired by the beacon

Pulsar (3 frames, extremely cool and complicated)


Pentadecathlon (15 frames)

Other Oscillators have been found with 4, 8, 14, 15 or 30 frames. Go ahead and find them!
[/spoiler]
[spoiler="Methuselas" (Barely Stable)]
These are all easy to build:
The R-pentomino (Takes 1103 cycles to stabilize, creates 6 gliders)
Diehard (Exception, dies after 130 cycles)
Acorn (Takes 5206 cycles to stabilize, creates 13 gliders)

A glider is a spaceship, see the next section.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler="Spaceships" (Stable & Moving)]

Glider, moves to the bottom right (According to the orientation in the image)

Lightweight spaceship (LWSS), moves to the right (According to the orientation on Wikipedia).
The spaceship is easy to build.
[/spoiler]
No-Life Life (I have no clue how they came up with this)

Guns (Don't move, emit Spaceships), example: Gosper Glider Gun
Rakes (Do move, emit Spaceships)
Puffers (Do move, emit Still Lifes)
Breeders (Do move, emit Guns - WHAT?! :o )
Lobsters (The same as Breeders)

Words can't describe

Did you think it couldn't get any crazier? WRONG. People made creations that shoot Gliders in a weird way at a Block on command. If shot right, it moves the Block towards the Glider, essentially creating a counter. Gliders were also used to create AND, OR and NOT gates.

Oh and also, there is this Universal Constructor that consists of several guns. If the gliders hit each other in specific patterns, they can create other objects. It can create anything from Spaceships to Breeders and even a copy of itself! I am not sure whether I should call this Art or Unhealthy.

Why is it so slow / Why didn't you use entities?
Yeah yeah, I know, changing blocks is slower than updating an entity.
However, the grid is currently 64 x 64 blocks. Imagine having to load in 4096 cows and have them stare at you while your pc gets fried...

I hope you will all enjoy this creation!



My Server: GIBI

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CreditVersion: 1.11
Progress100% complete
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Synthwavelolol
03/25/2021 1:38 am
Level 1 : New Miner
This is absolutely sick! thank you.
2
Bertiecrafter
03/30/2017 1:33 am
Level 71 : Legendary Engineer
history
Thank you BjornTheAwesome, HarryGamer82, NewSuperMario, CARTech_Mc, FellPacifists, pettyGamingHD, PixieMax, Vellaris, dsadsdasd and badtime961 for the diamonds!
1

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