1. About John Conway, and the Game of Life

John Horton Conway, a legendary mathematician who stood out for his love of games and for bringing mathematics to the masses, died on Saturday, April 11, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, from complications related to COVID-19. He was 82. (direct quote from the dean of Princeton)

He's often known for the invention of his cellular automaton called the Game of Life.

The idea of the Game of Life is simple enough. It's a game that can be conveniently represented in pixels. Each pixel represents a cell that has two states: on (alive) and off (death). The game progresses in generations. Each generation there will typically be cells that get turned off or turned on.

The state of each cell in the next generation is determined by the state of its neighbors in the current generation:

1. A cell turns on or stays on if it has exactly three neighbors (out of the 8 neighboring cells)
2. If a cell is on, it stays on if it has exactly three neighbors
3. In all other cases, the cell either turns off, or stays


2. This map

In memory of John Conway, I thought it would be a good idea to share my version of the Game of Life that I built a few months ago, which follows exactly the rules stated above.

Like most other maps, this map is essentially a collection of programmed cells. Because of its nature, the map is infinitely expandable via duplication of the cells.

The cells can also be reprogrammed to support other 'life-like' rules such as 34 Life, HighLife or Day & Night. The cell does automatic counting on how many neighbors around it is 'alive' and outputs into a signal ranging from 1-8, where it's possible to redefine a desired B and S behaviors of that cell, or for every cell.

The map is made in 1.12.2, however it seems to run marginally faster when I tested it in 1.15.2.

Hope you guys will enjoy it. I can upload a more detailed tutorial on how to operate/reprogram if there are enough requests.