ConwayLife.com

Golly 5.1b1 is now available for testing:

https://www.trevorrow.com/golly/golly-5.1b1-gtk-64bit.tar.gz (for Linux, built on Mint 20)
https://www.trevorrow.com/golly/golly-5.1b1-mac.dmg (for macOS, Intel or Silicon)
https://www.trevorrow.com/golly/golly-5.1b1-win-64bit.zip (for Windows 7+)

Changes ...

The hyperconway.py script doesn't work very well on macOS (buttons overlap and right-clicking isn't supported) so I got Claude to convert the Python code to Lua so it runs in Glu (or Glui on iPad):


hyperconway.png


I also got Claude to implement click-and-drag so you can move a tile to anywhere ...

Hello all. It may interest the members of this message board to know about my new vibe-coded "Game of Life" package.

Very nice! I'm particularly grateful for the link to the paper by James Edmond (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.22579). I've uploaded new versions of my HatLife and SpectreLife ...

Here's the EdmondC glider:

Here's the EdmondB glider:

BREAKING NEWS: I've uploaded a new version of HatLife which adds support for three rules recently found by James Edmond, as reported in this paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.22579

Here's the EdmondA glider:
eaglider.png


HatLife version=1
view=17 -60 -111
rule=EdmondA
7633=1 7642=3 7646=2 ...

Edmond found another rule with small patterns that can travel randomly across the tiling before eventually getting stuck in loops of varying periods. Here's a period-550 looper:
elooper550.png


SpectreLife version=1
# A period-550 looper.
view=2 -256 -94
rule=EdmondLooper
26406=2 26413=2 26415=1 ...

Edmond's original rule has a state 2 that doesn't actually do anything and simply dies, so I've modified his rule slightly so that state 2 spectres are stable. The modified rule now supports eaters, oscillators and glider guns:

egun.png


SpectreLife version=1
# A period-12 glider gun, along ...

BREAKING NEWS: I've uploaded a new version of SpectreLife which adds support for a couple of rules recently found by James Edmond, as reported in this paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.22579

One of the rules supports a small glider that can travel in 12 different directions:
egliders.png

Here's ...

SpectreLife supports the same rules as in HatLife:

Bbbb...Ssss...Nn[E]

These rules behave like those used in Golly's Generations algorithm. The b values (1 to 7) specify the state 1 neighbor counts necessary for an empty spectre to be born (as state 1) in the next generation. The s values (0 to ...

When SpectreLife starts up it reads a file called tiling.txt to create the spectre tiling. This file was created by a separate script (also written by Claude) that extracted a large rectangular region of 38,194 spectres. Each spectre has one of 12 possible orientations: a rotation by an integer ...

I know I said it was unlikely I'd write a SpectreLife script, but given how well LLMs can write code I thought I'd ask Claude to look at the code in HatLife.lua and use it to create SpectreLife.lua. Frankly, I was amazed at the result. It took about 20 minutes to write something that would have ...

Instead of clicking the .rule file again, I ran the pattern and then reset, which makes Golly reread the .rule file.

Ok, that let me reproduce the bug. I've fixed it for the next release (Golly 5.1b1) which will hopefully happen in a few days.

Depending on the changes you make to an active ...

While using a ruleloader rule, if you increase n_states, when Golly tries to update to the newly modified rule, all new states become broken and trying to click on one of them in the state selector will cause Golly to freeze. (Using MacOS)

I can't reproduce any error so please describe in more ...

Fits in a 20x20 rectangle, runs for about 126 million generations before stabilizing.

5b4o$9bo$9bo$10b2o6$o$o$o10b2obobo2bo$b2o14bobo$b3o8b3o3b2o$b2o8b4obo
2bo$11bobo4bo$17b3o$14bobo2bo$11b2ob3obo$12b3ob4o!

if Rustylife counts correctly, the ending population is 17,954,309

Confirmed using ...

In case anybody's curious, the @TREE data was created by copying the following Python code to the clipboard and then running make-ruletree.py in Scripts/Python/Rule-Generators. I find this method easier than creating @TABLE data (although it's only practical for a small number of states).


name ...

The thread title says it all. :wink:
x = 17, y = 16, rule = Gravity
.A6C$.9C$12C$13C$14C$15C$16C$16C$.8C4B4C$.7C6B3C$2.6C6B3C$2.6C6B3C$3.
6C4B4C$4.12C$6.9C$8.6C!
@RULE Gravity
@TREE
num_states=4
num_neighbors=8
num_nodes=64
1 0 0 2 3
2 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 2 3
2 0 0 0 2
3 1 3 1 1
2 0 2 0 0
2 0 2 0 2
3 5 6 ...

MDA wrote: September 27th, 2026, 3:38 am When will the iPadOS version of Golly gain the ability to run scripts?

Sorry, not likely to happen any time soon.

Does this mean that Golly will lose ruletable support?

No, it supports table data that's inside a .rule file, so if you have a .tree or .table file it should be quite easy to create a corresponding .rule file, assuming you have a decent text editor. See Help > File Formats for details on the ...

Golly 1.6 for iPad is now available from the App Store:

https://apps.apple.com/app/golly/id553184760

Changes:

* Fixed crashes on iOS 27.
* The button between All and Paste now has a text label (Edit) rather than an image.
* The New button asks if you want to save your changes.
* No more beeps if ...

qqd wrote: September 18th, 2026, 2:30 am I am not sure if this is intentional, but files with no extension cannot be viewed in the Files panel ...

Must be a Windows quirk because I definitely see such files on macOS. Golly's code says to display all files.

I've updated my iPad to iOS 27 and can reproduce the paste crash. There are other crashes as well so I'll try to fix those soon and release a new version. Thanks for the report.

NNlk05 wrote: September 5th, 2026, 7:07 pm How do I de/encode mutistate RLE? I need to decode LifeHistory for one of my programs.

The format is described in Golly's Help > File Formats.

Unfortunately, it appears that the issue is even worse after building 5.1b1 from source with the default local-gtk.mk configuration. Zooming into a large pattern while it was running actually ended up freezing the entire program indefinitely, until I killed it.

Which version of wxGTK did you ...

Sorry for the late reply, but unfortunately changing that setting didn't fix the problem. It also does indeed happen with the keyboard shortcuts you mentioned, as well as the numbered keyboard shortcuts like pressing 1 for 1:1.

Can you describe the "stutter" in more detail? Does it happen when ...