GOL-011 · technical companion
Half-Life
Standard Life runs beneath a second birth pathway: every death lengthens a cell's personal wait before local living neighbors can call it back, while exact local crowding can erase that accumulated history.
At a glance
- geometry
- Square lattice + per-position recurrence history
- neighborhood
- Moore · 8 adjacent cells
- states
- Dead / alive + death count + timer + reset evidence
- update
- Synchronous Life + reincarnation + exact-count history reset
- renderer
- Canvas 2D
What to explore
Ordinary Life should remain an independent pathway while repeated deaths stretch an additional return rhythm across the field. The causal history must remain visible even when counters grow, and reset events must be inspectable for one generation rather than disappearing because their resulting counter is zero.
Rules, update order and replay
Every Step computes ordinary configurable Life from one frozen board. A simulated alive-to-dead transition increments that position's unsigned death count and starts a wait equal to the new count. Dead-turn timers advance synchronously. When mature, a position reincarnates if its current frozen living-neighbor count meets the configurable minimum; a missed gate remains ready. Ordinary birth may occur earlier. If both paths match, one cell is born and evidence records Both. After occupancy is decided, the exact-count reset mask reads the same frozen neighbor count and may erase death count and timer; it does not retroactively cancel that Step's birth or reincarnation. State includes occupancy, death counts, timers, transition source, reset evidence, and generation. Replay requires full state, configuration, topology, profile, and start. Reset/Clear rebuild all history; manual edits make the affected position fresh.
Reading the simulation
Logarithmic cyan-to-violet history bands preserve visibility across small and large death counts. Amber marks timer-ready dead positions, coral a new death, cream reincarnation, and mint a reset event. Inspection reports death count, completed and remaining dead turns, ordinary result, maturity, neighbor gate, reset match, Ordinary/Reincarnation/Both source, next occupancy, and next count. Color can be simplified without removing the written causal explanation.
Reproduce an opening
Download the example above, open the simulation, expand the controls, then use Share & reproduce → Import JSON. The example uses authored rules and a fixed seeded starting field; it is independent of the site’s editable default composition. Import starts paused at Step zero.
Share links and JSON reproduce the configured starting conditions, including hidden layers rebuilt by Reset. They do not save an evolved board, hand-painted cells, speed or display preferences. Determinism applies to the same rule version and Step sequence; real-time playback rates vary by device.
Larger fields and more involved rules can reduce playback speed. Read the configuration format and automated-access guide for compatibility details.