This is a very cool piece of Code-Art to check out: there’s a 20 by 20 squared field set up. You have to make contours (figures) in the squares by clicking on them. Doing so, you ’seed’ mushrooms. Make sure you seed plenty so it looks like the first screenshot I took. Then press the ‘generation’ button to start. You’ll see the formula start to work and ‘calculate’ generations, showing the results instantly (as illustrated in the second image below)
Resulting process in action:
When it’s all finished, or if you can’t wait that long: earlier, you can start clicking randomly in the field (click fast in circular movements) to activate new generations of mushrooms.
Mushrooms follow these rules:
For each generation,
a mushroom with 1 or 0 neighbor dies (loneliness),
a mushroom with 4 or more neighbors dies (overcrowding),
a mushroom with 2 or 3 neighbors survives (stability),
an empty space with 3 neighbors sprouts a new mushroom (birth).
Check out:
Art Project: Mushroom Life by Kaiyijo
A Mushroom perspective on John Conway’s Game of Life
Also check out Kaiyijo’s site, by the way. It’s a Flash beauty!