A little project of mine where individual Game of Life patterns compete against each other. Note how alive cells at the very edge "charge up" the perimeter between them and try to dominate their neighbour.

We are using a Parity Grid ("checkerboard pattern") to assign neighbouring patterns alternating signs +/- which makes the calculation of the perimeter cell charge trivially easy.

When reading from our database of known patterns we can select those of similar lifespan (500-599 generations in our video) which makes for a more interesting dynamic. When using random patterns, most fizzle out very quickly and only a few live for potentially very long lifespans (which would make them dominate the leaderboard).