He administered
the rules for a hundred generations or so and
watched a mishmash of shapes appear. Then suddenly
a set of cells emerged from the group and appeared
to ???walk??? on its own across the board. Guy pointed
out to the group, ???Look, my bit??™s walking!???4 Guy
worked on the con?¬? guration until it walked across the
room and out the door. He had discovered what the
group would call a ???glider.??? A glider is a con?¬? guration
that cycles through a set of shapes and moves along
the board as it goes. Figure 5.13 shows what several
generations of Guy??™s glider look like.
Conway??™s system was dubbed the Game of Life
because it showed that from simple beginnings, lifeform-
like pa erns could develop. There are a number
of emulators online that you can download and
experiment with. You will see that some use di?¬? erent
rules and allow you to create your own starting
conditions.
These types of systems are interesting to game
designers because games can employ emergent techniques
to make more believable and unpredictable
scenarios. Games as di?¬? erent as The Sims, Grand
The Auto 3, Halo, Black & White, Pikmin, Munch??™s
Oddysee, and Metal Gear Solid 2 have all experimented
with emergent properties in their designs.
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