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The Game of Life (Video Game)

 The Game of Life (Video Game)
type
TVTItem
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
label
The Game of Life (Video Game)
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
page
TheGameOfLife
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
comment
Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })The Game of Life (often referred to as "Conway's Game of Life" for clarity, or just "Life" for short) is not, technically, a game (or if it is, it's a zero-player game with no objective). The title is a somewhat romantic way of referring to a specific cellular automaton invented by mathematician John Conway in 1970.A cellular automaton is a large grid of simple "cells", each of which has a state that can change depending on how it interacts with its neighbors. In the case of the Game of Life, the rules are extremely simple: Each cell can be either alive (on) or dead (off). If a dead cell has exactly 3 neighboring cells, it becomes alive (birth). If a live cell has either 2 or 3 neighboring cells, it stays alive (survival). In all other situations, a cell dies (or remains dead).Although these rules are trivial, the surprise of the Game of Life is that the resulting cell interactions are remarkably complex. From the chaotic interactions, stable patterns can be seen to form; tiny formations of cells that stabilise each other, oscillating formations that "blink" over and over, and perhaps most interesting of all, cell formations that can move called "spaceships", autonomously of other cells. The Game of Life could be considered a simulation of a unique "universe" with its own physical laws.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })By carefully arranging cells in the Game of Life, it is even possible to build new things; "guns" which fire streams of "gliders" continuously, "reflectors" which can bounce gliders around, patterns that grow continuously, and more. Eventually, it was discovered that one can implement logical structures in the Game of Life and build a universal computer; that is, the Game of Life is Turing-complete. Conway also proved that it is possible to create a universal constructor in the Game of Life; that is, a pattern that can construct other patterns, including itself. Various attempts have been made to build such self-replicators.Even decades later, the Game of Life has a strong hobbyist following, and new discoveries are still being made.See this page on The Other Wiki for more information.A website allowing you to play with Life patterns can be found here. program allowing you to play with Life and several other similar games can be found here.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_3'); })Not to be confused with Milton Bradley's board game. For stories about your everyday world suddenly taking on these rules, see Life Is A Game.
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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2023-01-15T02:33:34Z
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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2023-01-15T02:33:35Z
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
processingComment
Dropped link to MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail: Not a Feature - ITEM
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
processingComment
Dropped link to Tetris: Not a Feature - ITEM
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
processingComment
Dropped link to TheBeatles: Not a Feature - IGNORE
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
isPartOf
DBTropes
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_16f40dc1
type
Cool of Rule
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_16f40dc1
comment
Cool of Rule: Despite the simplicity of the rules, extremely complex constructions are nonetheless possible and have been successfully built.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_16f40dc1
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 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_16f40dc1
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_16f40dc1
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_1ce1cfd8
type
all lowercase letters
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_1ce1cfd8
comment
all lowercase letters: The names of many search programs, including "apgsearch", "dr", "gfind" (and its derivatives "qfind" and "zfind"), "ikpx", "lifesrc", "ptbsearch", and "slmake", due to the fact that they are usually run from the command line.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_1ce1cfd8
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_1ce1cfd8
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_1fffccf7
type
No Plot? No Problem!
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_1fffccf7
comment
No Plot? No Problem!: No plot of any kind to be found here, just a set of rules on a grid.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_1fffccf7
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_1fffccf7
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_1fffccf7
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_20ab8163
type
Unnecessarily Large Vessel
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_20ab8163
comment
Unnecessarily Large Vessel: Many spaceships can be extended arbitrarily, sometimes in both length and width, though this usually does not give them additional functionality.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_20ab8163
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_20ab8163
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_20ab8163
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_20e20e99
type
Not the Intended Use
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_20e20e99
comment
Not the Intended Use: LifeHistory's gray cells, originally intended to be used as a boundary between two regions of the Life universe. They are invulnerable, and instantly kill off any living cells next to them. This turned out be useful for creating all sorts of patterns not possible in ordinary Life, so much so that an entire forum thread was made dedicated to it. The intended use of SlowLife is for even-numbered generations to contain exclusively white cells so that the pattern will function like a regular Life pattern, albeit at half the speed. However, by offsetting part of the pattern by a "half-generation", causing different parts of the universe to be updated at different times, new patterns can be made.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_20e20e99
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_20e20e99
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_27efbf90
type
Verber Creature
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_27efbf90
comment
Verber Creature: Has its own page.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_27efbf90
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_27efbf90
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_27efbf90
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_295087bf
type
Non-Indicative Name
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_295087bf
comment
Non-Indicative Name: There's an object named "ship", but it's a still life despite sharing its name with the colloquial shortening of "spaceship".
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_295087bf
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_295087bf
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_295087bf
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_2af7961
type
Faster-Than-Light Travel
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_2af7961
comment
Faster-Than-Light Travel: The Fast Forward Force Field is a subverted example. While the reaction seems to make a LWSS briefly move at 11c/6, which is faster than the Speed of Light, a closer look reveals that the apparition of the "teleported" LWSS starts regardless of the presence or not of an "about to be teleported" LWSS. Information within the reaction actually only travels at the Speed of Light to determine whether or not the "teleported" LWSS will fully form or be destroyed.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_2af7961
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 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_2af7961
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_2af7961
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_2bdae2ae
type
Awesome, but Impractical
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_2bdae2ae
comment
Awesome, but Impractical: Many contraptions created in the Game of Life use complex and extremely wasteful techniques to perform relatively simple calculations, and the interest in them mainly comes from the fact that they successfully perform their job at all. Adam P. Goucher's pi and phi calculators take billions or even trillions of generations to calculate just a few decimal digits. Any universal computer, such as Paul Rendell's Turing machines. Even a regular Turing machine is an extremely inefficient way to perform calculations, and adding another layer of abstraction by emulating it in Life only makes it orders of magnitude slower. In 2013, a challenge was posted on Stack Exchange to "build a working game of Tetris in Conway's Game of Life". The resulting pattern, the "Quest for Tetris Processor", was completed in 2017 thanks to the combined efforts of at least nine different Stack Exchange users. However, it uses one more layer of abstraction than is probably necessary - it uses metacells to simulate a custom-made cellular automaton called VarLife, which in turn uses its own metacells to simulate a game of Tetris. Goucher's 0E0Pnote 0E0P = "zero encoded (by) zero population" metacell. Unlike previous examples of unit cells, this one "dies" by completely and cleanly self-destructing. Notably, this proves that certain exotic types of patterns known to exist in other cellular automata must therefore also exist in Conway's Game of Life. However, the metacell is simultaneously orders of magnitude larger (~262,000 cells across) and takes orders of magnitude slower (over 68 billion generations just to simulate a single metageneration). To prove that it works, Goucher created a specialized algorithm called "StreamLife" which is optimized for this specific type of pattern. Even still, it took about a month running StreamLife to confirm that a single metacell would stay alive for a single metageneration. The reverse caber-tosser, which Goucher was also heavily involved in creating, theoretically allows any conceivable glider synthesis to be encoded in a single glider.note Specifically, the glider's exact distance from the rest of the mechanism contains the data that allows an arbitrary glider synthesis to be recreated. As of November 2022, this proves that no pattern takes more than 15 gliders to synthesize, unless it is completely unsynthesizable. The problem is that the reverse caber-tosser takes a prohibitively long time to simulate, as the length of time the construction takes increases exponentially as the recipe gets longer. Even synthesizing a relatively simple object requires an extremely long recipe, as all the leftover debris has to be cleaned up somehow.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_2bdae2ae
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_2bdae2ae
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_2bdae2ae
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_302730a
type
Fusion Dance
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_302730a
comment
Fusion Dance: Glider synthesis, in which gliders are collided together to produce other objects.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_302730a
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_302730a
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_302730a
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_34f8042a
type
Gratuitous French
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_34f8042a
comment
Gratuitous French: One oscillator is named "en retard", which is French for "late".
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_34f8042a
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_34f8042a
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_34f8042a
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_352151a3
type
Recursive Reality
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_352151a3
comment
Recursive Reality: Unit Cells are large patterns which, when set in a grid, are capable of computing the Game of Life itself by interacting with each others. More advanced variants are capable of simulating any life-like cellular automata, any non-totalistic rule, and even to "birth" and "die" like an actual cell. And yes, a large enough array of Unit Cells can simulate a Meta-Unit Cell, which may itself be part of a Meta-Meta-Unit Cell, and so on. This website demonstrates the eternal recursion, with OTCA metapixels, that, when zoomed in, reveal themselves to be made of metapixels too, which are themselves made of smaller metapixels, endlessly.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_352151a3
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 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_352151a3
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_352151a3
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_39b8d3d6
type
Boring, but Practical
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_39b8d3d6
comment
Boring, but Practical: The humble block is a very simple and very common 4-cell stable pattern. Despite this simplicity, it has a lot of uses from stabilization to conduits. Technology is called "spartan" if it only uses common patterns. While it is less optimized size-wise and speed-wise than non-spartan technology, it is much easier to create using glider collisions, which makes it useful for replicators, by reducing the amount of data needed to code themselves.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_39b8d3d6
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 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_39b8d3d6
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_39b8d3d6
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3b194a1a
type
Named by Democracy
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3b194a1a
comment
Named by Democracy: When the discoverer of a notable pattern does not endorse a particular name for it, this is often how names catch on.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3b194a1a
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3b194a1a
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3b194a1a
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3c7ccb69
type
No Body Left Behind
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3c7ccb69
comment
Whereas typical methuselahs only "die" in a somewhat figurative sense (by settling into a pattern of stable, non-interacting objects), diehards are a subset of methuselahs which end their lifespan by disappearing completely.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3c7ccb69
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3c7ccb69
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3c7ccb69
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3ee5fd12
type
One-Letter Name
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3ee5fd12
comment
One-Letter Name: All of the polyominoes (patterns where all cells are orthogonally connected) with 4 and 5 cells have single-letter names, as well as a few of the more notable ones with 6 and 7 cells. Examples include the T-tetromino, the R-pentomino, and the B-heptomino. In the context of single conduits and converters, certain common objects have single-letter names. Besides the aforementioned polyominoes, these include "G" for the glider, "H" for the Herschel, and "P" for the pi-heptomino, among others. "Big A", a tagalong which can be added to a pair of lightweight spaceships, is sometimes referred to as simply "A". At least five different S-shaped still lifes have been referred to as "S" at one point or another, though it most often refers to the 14-cell "big S".
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3ee5fd12
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3ee5fd12
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3ee5fd12
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3eed59a8
type
Explosive Overclocking
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3eed59a8
comment
Explosive Overclocking: Signal conduits and converters have a safe "recovery time" where, if the input signals are separated by at least that many generations, they will not self-destruct. Trying to "overclock" them by inputting signals faster than this runs the risk of the device exploding, depending on how exactly consecutive signals interact.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3eed59a8
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3eed59a8
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_3eed59a8
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_44bd31e2
type
Trope Codifier
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_44bd31e2
comment
Trope Codifier: The Game of Life was not the first cellular automaton - the concept originated in the 1940s, and the first actual cellular automaton was devised by John von Neumann in the 1950s. However, Conway's automaton is the best-known and most widely explored. Part of this is due to its simplicity: the automaton can be summed up in just a few sentences and implemented in only a few lines of code.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_44bd31e2
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_44bd31e2
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_44bd31e2
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_49363199
type
Random Drop Booster
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_49363199
comment
Random Drop Booster: Using different symmetry options when soup searching can make certain objects (usually those exhibting some form of symmetry themselves) far more common. apgsearch in particular even supports custom symmetriesnote in which arbitrary patterns are fed into the program via standard input for if one is looking for specific types of objects.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_49363199
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_49363199
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_49363199
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_4afad1b9
type
Rare Random Drop
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_4afad1b9
comment
Rare Random Drop: There are infinitely many distinct objects which can theoretically appear in a soup, and therefore there is no limit to how rare they can get. Some objects, such as the loafer, have only appeared a handful of times in hundreds of trillions of soups, and others such as the Gosper glider gun have never appeared as of July 2022.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_4afad1b9
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_4afad1b9
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_4afad1b9
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_4f4372e9
type
Early-Installment Weirdness
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_4f4372e9
comment
Early-Installment Weirdness: The pulsar was originally known as "Cambridge pulsar CP 48-56-72", in reference to the naming convention of the first Real Life pulsar, which was also discovered at Cambridge a few years earlier. The early emphasis on "pure glider generators", which are patterns that eventually evolve into one or more gliders without producing any stationary objects. It turned out that most of these weren't particularly useful for anything, and so interest in them waned after the 1970s.note One notable exception is a subcategory of pure glider generators known as "splitters", which consist of one glider colliding with a constellation of still lifes to produce multiple new gliders. Initially, "fuses" (repeating patterns with an instability at one end that propagates along the fuse) were considered to be notable for their own sake, but were later found to be so common so as to be generally uninteresting. However, "reburnable" fuses (where the output is the same as the input, possibly offset by some amount) are still extremely useful as they can be turned into spaceships (albeit extremely large ones). The basic diagonal-line fuse (which burns at lightspeed, leaving no debris behind) is also sometimes found in glider syntheses, as it can transport a signal through a narrow area. The emphasis on "polyominoes", which are (usually unstable) patterns consisting entirely of orthogonally connected cells. The first issue of the Lifeline newsletter in 1971 even began with a request for readers to work out the evolutions of four "heptominoes" (7-cell polyominoes) whose fates had not yet been determined. Since then, efforts to comprehensively track the evolutions of patterns up to a given size have generally expanded the search space to all non-trivial patterns of a given population or bounding box, rather than just polyominoes. Although many polyominoes are still extremely important (such as the 5-cell R-pentomino, and the 7-cell pi-heptomino and B-heptomino), they are only polyominoes by happenstance, and in fact many of their smallest predecessors are not polyominoes. Robert Wainwright's classification system for Life objects, first proposed in Volume 1 of Lifeline. Still lifes were categorized as Class I, oscillators were Class II, spaceships were Class III, glider guns (and presumably anything else exhibiting infinite growth) were Class IV, and unstable objects such as polyominoes were either Class V or Class VI depending on whether or not their fates had been fully determined.note Starting in Volume 2, Classes V and VI were merged together. Each of these were further subdivided depending on specific characteristics. Like many things of the Lifeline era, this scheme was mostly abandoned after the 1970s. The two distinct phases of a glider were originally referred to as "glider-α" and "glider-β" respectively.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_4f4372e9
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_4f4372e9
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_5874eb12
type
Organic Technology
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_5874eb12
comment
Organic Technology: Everything is made of cells.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_5874eb12
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 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_5874eb12
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_5874eb12
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_5f930b19
type
Named After Somebody Famous
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_5f930b19
comment
Named After Somebody Famous: There is an entire group of patterns named after famous composers. The first oscillator discovered with a period of 23 was named after mathematician David Hilbert, who was known for his collection of 23 unsolved problems. The fast forward force field is named after sci-fi writer Robert L. Forward.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_5f930b19
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_5f930b19
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_67677940
type
Giant Flyer
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_67677940
comment
Giant Flyer: Engineered spaceships, sometimes generically referred to as "gliders", can reach millions of cells in size, so large that they become impractical to simulate using general-purpose algorithms.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_67677940
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1.0
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_67677940
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6b96cc36
type
Explosive Results
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6b96cc36
comment
Explosive Results: Adding or removing even a single cell from an otherwise stable pattern more often than not results in it exploding into a mess of debris.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6b96cc36
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6b96cc36
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6b96cc36
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6c3d1777
type
Magic A Is Magic A
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6c3d1777
comment
Magic A Is Magic A: Cells are born to three parents, and patterns can grow infinitely without a fuel source. Ultimately, the entire Life universe is governed by the four rules listed above.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6c3d1777
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6c3d1777
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6d7026fa
type
Punny Name
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6d7026fa
comment
Punny Name: The website Catagolue ("catalogue" + "GoL"). The oscillators "aVerage",note Across the oscillator's five (V) phases, the average number of currently living cells within its oscillating portion is also five. "burloaferimeter",note The oscillator has seven phases, while a "bread loaf" (now known as simply a loaf) has seven cells. and "roteightor".note "rotator" + "eight", referring to the oscillator's period.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6d7026fa
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 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6d7026fa
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6d7026fa
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6ec03ba1
type
Mook Maker
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6ec03ba1
comment
Mook Maker: Some patterns continuously produce spaceships (most often gliders). The first discovered, and most famous, is the Gosper's Glider Gun, which produces a glider every 30 generations. Another kind is Rakes, which are moving patterns continuously producing spaceships. Some types of Breedersnote patterns having a quadratic rather than linear infinite growth like the previous patterns take it even further by continuously making guns or rakes, which themselves make spaceships.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6ec03ba1
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1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6ec03ba1
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_6ec03ba1
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_70e34c75
type
Player Versus Player
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_70e34c75
comment
Player Versus Player: Some implementations of Conway's Game of Life (such as Game of Life and Death and Conway's Multiplayer Game of Life) are in the form of a PvP game. In both of these games, players have a finite number of cells they can modify at a time, and the objective is generally to have more living cells than your opponent(s).
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_70e34c75
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 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_70e34c75
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 The Game of Life (Video Game)
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The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_70e34c75
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_71e12a1f
type
A Kind of One
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_71e12a1f
comment
A Kind of One: "Glider" usually refers to the iconic 5-cell spaceship with glide reflection symmetry, but is sometimes used to refer to spaceships in general, even ones that don't have glide symmetry. The caterpillar was the first macro-spaceship (i.e. large, self-supporting spaceship) to be constructed, and therefore other macro-spaceships, such as the silverfish and the waterbear, are occasionally also referred to as caterpillars despite being based on completely different mechanisms.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_71e12a1f
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_71e12a1f
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_71e12a1f
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_735b4101
type
Colour-Coded for Your Convenience
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_735b4101
comment
Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Some implementations of Life have multiple cell colors to convey additional information besides "on" and "off": "LifeHistory", which uses dark blue to indicate the "envelope" of cells which were previously alive, and also has three additional colors to be used for annotating patterns. "LifeSuper" and "LifeUltra" are extensions of this, and each contain dozens of colors. "SlowLife", in which the pattern only advances every other generation. In odd-numbered generations, cells that will be born are highlighted in green, while cells that will be killed are highlighted in red. This can help to illustrate the concept that the entire grid is supposed to be updated at the same time, rather than cells being modified as you go along. "DoubleB3S23" and "TripleB3S23" are effectively multiple Life universes overlaid on top of each other, and thus require additional cell colors to indicate which universes the cell is currently alive in. This is particularly useful for showing similarities and/or differences in evolution between two different patterns. "Colorized" versions of Life allow living cells to be one of a number of different colors. The most famous of these is "Immigration", where each living cell can be either red or blue and inherits its color from a majority of its initial neighbors. Other variants (such as "QuadLife" and "SpectralLife") have more cell colors and use different rules to resolve conflicts when birthing a new cell. Ignoring the colors, however, all of these function identically to the original Life.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_735b4101
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_735b4101
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_735b4101
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_80df060c
type
Mascot Mook
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_80df060c
comment
Mascot Mook: While the glider isn't exclusive to the exact rule of the Game of Life, it is undoubtedly the first pattern that comes to mind when thinking about this rule.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_80df060c
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_80df060c
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_80df060c
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_834427cd
type
Cap
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_834427cd
comment
Cap: The Speed of Light, known as "c" by analogy to real life, is the maximum speed at which an information of any sort can travel, whether it is a spaceship, a signal, or else. Due to the Game of Life using Moore neighbourhood, it is of 1 cell per generation, either orthogonally or diagonally. However, finite spaceships are constrained by lower limits. As such, it can be proved that their maximum orthogonal speed is c/2, their maximum diagonal speed is c/4, and their maximum knightwise speed (that is, how many generations it takes for a knightship to do a knight move) is c/6.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_834427cd
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_834427cd
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_834427cd
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_8409a385
type
Exactly What It Says on the Tin
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_8409a385
comment
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Glider guns are usually named after their period (i.e. how often they produce gliders). The period-48 glider gun, for example, produces a glider once every 48 generations. Many oscillators consisting of small objects being "hassled" or "shuttled" by other objects are named after their period, the objects being interacted with, and the general type of interaction. Some examples are "p146 pi-heptomino hassler" and the "p56 B-heptomino shuttle". The statorless p3, statorless p5, and statorless p6 are all named for the fact that they do not contain any "stator" cells, or cells which stay alive forever. The T-nosed p4, p5, p6, and p7, as well as the p3, p4, p5, p6, and p7 pipsquirters. These are all named after the specific types of "sparks" they give off, which can interact with other patterns without disturbing the rest of the oscillator. Any name of the form "X on Y" usually refers to two objects placed relative to each other so that they interact in some way, whether to stabilize each other (in the case of still lifes) or to occasionally produce new cells whenever their phases align (in the case of oscillators). apgcodes, which are used by the search program apgsearch and its output database Catagolue as unambiguously identifiers for patterns exhibiting periodic behavior. (still lifes, oscillators, spaceships, etc.) The first part of an apgcode is a prefix describing what type of object it is along with its period and/or population, while the second part is an encoding of the pattern itself, allowing it to be recreated simply from its name. Signal conduits and converters are often named after their input and output objects, the output location and orientation of the resulting object, and/or the number of generations the conversion takes to complete.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_8409a385
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_8409a385
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_8409a385
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_8430699a
type
Alternate Universe
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_8430699a
comment
"DoubleB3S23" and "TripleB3S23" are effectively multiple Life universes overlaid on top of each other, and thus require additional cell colors to indicate which universes the cell is currently alive in. This is particularly useful for showing similarities and/or differences in evolution between two different patterns.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_8430699a
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_8430699a
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_8430699a
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_91b5521d
type
Complete Immortality
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_91b5521d
comment
LifeHistory's gray cells, originally intended to be used as a boundary between two regions of the Life universe. They are invulnerable, and instantly kill off any living cells next to them. This turned out be useful for creating all sorts of patterns not possible in ordinary Life, so much so that an entire forum thread was made dedicated to it.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_91b5521d
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_91b5521d
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_91b5521d
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_91cecc1e
type
Exaggerated Trope
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_91cecc1e
comment
"LifeHistory", which uses dark blue to indicate the "envelope" of cells which were previously alive, and also has three additional colors to be used for annotating patterns. "LifeSuper" and "LifeUltra" are extensions of this, and each contain dozens of colors.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_91cecc1e
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_91cecc1e
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_91cecc1e
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_92272062
type
Randomly Generated Loot
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_92272062
comment
Randomly Generated Loot: Once a soup has permanently stabilized, what's left behind could be anything that happens to exhibit periodic behavior. Soup searching programs will then try to give these objects unique identifiers, such as "apgcodes" which are used by apgsearch.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_92272062
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_92272062
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_92272062
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_95bca4c9
type
Tuckerization
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_95bca4c9
comment
Tuckerization: The spaceship "doo-dah" was named after a nickname for the discoverer's grandfather, who had a collection of arrowheads.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_95bca4c9
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_95bca4c9
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_95bca4c9
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_98b1dc8f
type
Luck-Based Mission
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_98b1dc8f
comment
Luck-Based Mission: One of the simplest ways to research new patterns in Conway's Game of Life is to simply create a (typically 16x16) area of random on and off cells called a "soup" and watch it evolve. Catagolue, the largest database of such soup results, has more than three hundred trillion entries.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_98b1dc8f
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_98b1dc8f
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_98b1dc8f
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9adf3455
type
Extra Parent Conception
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9adf3455
comment
Extra Parent Conception: Cells are always born to exactly three parents.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9adf3455
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9adf3455
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9adf3455
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9de3abce
type
Merging Mistake
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9de3abce
comment
Merging Mistake: Can happen when creating a glider synthesis. Gliders coming from different directions might cross paths and collide when they're not supposed to, or components of the synthesis might interact too early or too late.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9de3abce
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9de3abce
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9de3abce
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9eb7e397
type
Long-Lived
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9eb7e397
comment
Long-Lived: Methuselahs are unstable patterns which are noted for lasting an unusually long time relative to their size. The most famous of these is the "R-pentomino", a 5-cell pattern which lasts for a total of 1,103 generations before finally stabilizing into a mess of still lifes, blinkers, and escaping gliders.note For comparison, all eleven other pentominoes stabilize in ten generations or fewer. Whereas typical methuselahs only "die" in a somewhat figurative sense (by settling into a pattern of stable, non-interacting objects), diehards are a subset of methuselahs which end their lifespan by disappearing completely.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9eb7e397
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9eb7e397
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_9eb7e397
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a059270
type
Gratuitous Greek
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a059270
comment
The two distinct phases of a glider were originally referred to as "glider-α" and "glider-β" respectively.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a059270
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a059270
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a059270
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a5fb0d24
type
Healing Factor
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a5fb0d24
comment
Healing Factor: The block can survive any single cell being removed, recovering in just one generation. Eaters are a class of patterns capable of destroying certain objects while repairing the resulting damage to themselves. The most common of them is the eater 1 or fishhook, which can destroy a variety of objects such as loaves, pre-beehives, gliders, blinkers, and can attack another eater to form a period 3 oscillator. Edge-repairing spaceships are a class of spaceships capable of repairing some kinds of damage, giving them capabilities to perturb other objects without being destroyed themselves.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a5fb0d24
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a5fb0d24
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a5fb0d24
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a67b8999
type
Extreme Graphical Representation
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a67b8999
comment
Extreme Graphical Representation: Brice Due's OTCA metapixels, which can simulate any "Life-like" cellular automaton within Conway's Game of Life. Whereas previous "unit cells" required you to squint really hard to determine if they were living or dead, Due's metapixels each produce a grid of thousands of spaceships so that, when zoomed out, the viewer can easily see the resulting metapattern. Similarly, Adam P. Goucher's pi and phi calculators go above and beyond merely calculating fundamental mathematical constants: they also print out the decimal digits using a matrix of blocks which can be found at the top of the pattern.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a67b8999
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a67b8999
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_a67b8999
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_b5049d76
type
Added Alliterative Appeal
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_b5049d76
comment
The fast forward force field is named after sci-fi writer Robert L. Forward.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_b5049d76
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_b5049d76
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_b5049d76
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_c75df49a
type
Shout-Out
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_c75df49a
comment
Shout-Out: Patterns which are not called after they appearance sometimes have a name referencing pop culture. One example is Sir Robin and its ministrels.note This is because Sir Robin is a "knightship" (a spaceship that moves along an oblique slope identical to a knight in chess), and since Sir Robin moves at one sixth of the knightwise speed of light (which means it does a knight move every 6 generations), which can be proved to be the maximum possible in Conway's Game of Life, it bravely runs away indeed! Another example is the oscillator "penny lane".
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_c75df49a
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_c75df49a
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_c75df49a
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_d5656fbe
type
The Unpronounceable
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_d5656fbe
comment
The Unpronounceable: The oscillator "$rats". It's unclear how, or if, the dollar sign is supposed to be pronounced.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_d5656fbe
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_d5656fbe
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_d5656fbe
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_e19da456
type
Diagonal Speed Boost
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_e19da456
comment
Diagonal Speed Boost: Diagonally adjacent cells are treated the exact same as orthogonally adjacent ones. Thus the fastest possible speed that information can travel at, in terms of Euclidean distance, is specifically one cell diagonally per generation, as the distance between diagonally adjacent cells is √2 (~1.414) instead of 1.note However, a finite spaceship cannot maintain this speed indefinitely. In fact, the speed limit for diagonal spaceships is actually slower in this regard than orthogonal spaceships - orthogonal spaceships can travel up to one cell every two generations, whereas diagonal spaceships can only travel √2 cells every four generations.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_e19da456
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_e19da456
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_e19da456
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ea6f361f
type
You Are Number 6
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ea6f361f
comment
You Are Number 6: The oscillator known as "sixty-nine", named for the fact that all four of its phases contain exactly 69 living cells each. The oscillator "101", named because one of its phases looks like the numerals 101.note Incidentally, when interpreted as binary, 101 also happens to be the oscillator's period (5).
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ea6f361f
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ea6f361f
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ea6f361f
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ebd7409c
type
Fusion Dissonance
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ebd7409c
comment
Fusion Dissonance: Zig-zagged with glider synthesis. Due to the chaotic nature of the Game of Life, the end result of a glider synthesis usually bears little or no resemblance to the initial gliders. Individual steps of a glider synthesis, also known as "components", can avert this by changing only a few cells at a time. These components are often broadly applicable across many patterns featuring common motifs, and so search programs (such as Alex Greason's collisrc) have been made to search for them by randomly hitting still lifes with gliders. On rare occasions, however, collisrc will stumble upon a solution in which a complex still life is completely destroyed by gliders, and then the resulting mess later reforms into a new, entirely different still life, making this trope apply once again.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ebd7409c
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ebd7409c
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ebd7409c
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ee7a60e9
type
One-Steve Limit
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ee7a60e9
comment
One-Steve Limit: Averted with the spaceship and still life both named "barge". There are also a spaceship and common object named "wing".
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ee7a60e9
featureApplicability
-1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ee7a60e9
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_ee7a60e9
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f7991a5c
type
Wrap Around
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f7991a5c
comment
Wrap Around: It is common for implementations of the Life grid to wrap around at the edges by transplanting the game on a torus, as otherwise the edge of the grid can interfere with the automaton (a cell at the edge can only have at most 5 neighbors, or 3 in the corners). However, other more exotic wrap arounds exists, such as playing the game on a sphere or a klein bottle.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f7991a5c
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f7991a5c
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f7991a5c
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f7d3dbb
type
One to Million to One
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f7d3dbb
comment
One to Million to One: A SMOS, or "spaceship made of spaceships", is a spaceship which, during at least one of its phases, is made exclusively out of smaller spaceships which proceed to crash and form a structure that recreates the swarm at a different spot. One such example is known in the game of life, and is made out of 144,221 gliders in the "spaceships" phase. Taking this trope even further are SMOSMOS, of which some are known in specific rules. These SMOS have a phase where they are made out entirely of spaceships that are themselves SMOS.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f7d3dbb
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f7d3dbb
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f7d3dbb
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f87c42d4
type
Video Game Cruelty Potential
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f87c42d4
comment
Video Game Cruelty Potential: Patterns in Life are extremely fragile; adding or removing just one cell to a stable pattern is generally enough to destabilize it such that it completely unravels and decomposes into a chaotic mess.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f87c42d4
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f87c42d4
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_f87c42d4
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_fd0fdc9
type
Video Game Randomizer
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_fd0fdc9
comment
Video Game Randomizer: Soup searching programs. The most notable of these is apgsearch, which randomly generates 16x16 soups using a hashing algorithm and runs them until completion.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_fd0fdc9
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_fd0fdc9
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_fd0fdc9
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_fd94c4ac
type
Theme Naming
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_fd94c4ac
comment
Theme Naming: Has its own page.
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_fd94c4ac
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_fd94c4ac
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_fd94c4ac
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_name
type
ItemName
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_name
comment
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_name
featureApplicability
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_name
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Game of Life (Video Game)
hasFeature
The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_name
 The Game of Life (Video Game) / int_name
itemName
The Game of Life (Video Game)

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