2x2 36;125 Chaotic Similar in character to Conway's Life, but creates completely different patterns. Many different oscillators occur at random, and a rare glider. Simple block seeds usually lead to oscillators of various periods. This rule is also a 2x2 block universe. This means that patterns consisting entirely of 2x2 blocks, all aligned, will continue to consist of 2x2 blocks. 34 Life 34;34 Exploding One of the first explored alternatives to Conway's Life, back in the early 1970's. Computing power was so low back then, it was months before anyone noticed that this is an exploding universe. What makes this universe interesting is the variety of small oscillators and the period-3 orthogonal spaceship. Amoeba 357;1358 Chaotic An "amoeba" universe - forms large random areas that resemble amoebas. Internal to a random area is chaos. The edge vacillates wildly, and patterns tend to grow more than shrink. The more they grow, the more certain their survival. This is a fairly well-balanced rule. Assimilation 4567/345 Stable Rule similar to Diamoeba, but much more stable. The diamond-shaped patterns are filled in 70-85% and never die. Coagulations 378;235678 Exploding Creates gooey coagulations as it expands forever. Best viewed at zoom=1. Notice that this is a close variation of the previous rule, 3678;235678, except that there is one less condition for a dead cell to come to life on the next generation. Conway's Life 3;23 Chaotic This is the most famous cellular automata ever invented. People have been discovering patterns for this rule since around 1970. Large collections are available on the Internet. Coral 3;45678 Exploding This rule produces patterns with a surprisingly slow rate of expansion and an interesting coral-like texture. Day & Night 3678;34678 Stable So named because dead cells in fields of live cells act by the same rules as live cells in fields of dead cells. Diamoeba 35678;5678 Chaotic Creates solid diamond-shaped "amoeba" patterns that are surprisingly unpredictable. Flakes 012345678/3 Expanding Also known as Life without Death (LwoD). Gnarl 1;1 Exploding To see its beauty start with simple patterns, for example with a single dot. HighLife 36;23 Chaotic This rule is very similar to Conway's Life, but it has a surprise replicator pattern. There is no known replicator in Conway's Life. InverseLife 0123478;34678 Chaotic The rule shows similar oscillators and gliders to GOL, but dead cells create the patterns amongst live cells in the background. Long life 345;5 Stable This rule is called "Long life" because of the extremely high period patterns that can be produced in this universe. Maze 3;12345 Exploding An "a-maze-ing" universe - crystallizes into maze-like patterns. Interesting variations: try removing 5 from the "Survival" list. To produce mice running in the maze, add 7 to the "Births" list. Mazectric 3;1234 Exploding "Mazectric" and "Corrosion of Conformity". An interesting variation of the Maze rule which produces longer halls and a highly linear format. Adding B7 to maze (keeping S5) allows some "mice" to run back and forth in the halls. Switching the B3 to B45 though, electrifies the mazes. Dropping S3 gives "Corrosion of Conformity", a slow burn from almost any starting pattern, resulting in a rusting away of the local continuum. Move 368;2458 Stable A very calm universe, which nonetheless has a very commonly occurring slow spaceship and a slow puffer. Pseudo life 357;238 Chaotic In this close variation of Conway's Life, the chaos is remarkably similar, but almost none of the engineered patterns work. Replicator 1357;1357 Exploding In this remarkable universe every pattern is a replicator. After 32 steps every starting pattern is replicated 8 times. Seeds 2; Exploding Every living cell dies every generation, but most patterns explode anyway. It's a challenge to build new patterns that don't explode. Arguably the simplest challenging rule. Serviettes 234; Exploding Like 2; Every living cell dies every generation. This rule is picked for the exceptional fabric-like beauty of the patterns that it produces. Stains 678;235678 Stable Most close variations of these rules expand forever, but this one curiously does not. Why? Star Wars 2;345;4 In Star Wars most cells travel horizontally and vertically at light speed in all sorts of Hauler-like formations. Many formations resemble space ships, often shooting missiles. WalledCities 45678;2345 Stable The rule creates walled cities of activity. Once the field has stabilized, one can draw lines to connect the cities and the patterns expand to create an even larger city. But once the wall is complete, the city never grows, even though there is near-random activity inside it.