Click the thumbnails below to see the game in action. The thumbnail on the left is the game running with Conway's original rules and the thumbnail on the right is a slight modification to the rules. You will notice that changing the rules just a little makes a big difference.
If you want to run and interact with the real game (which I hope you do) feel free to download and run the versions I made in Processing. Each .zip file has a windows, linux, and mac version. Read the instructions carefully to get the most out of the program. Feel free to email me about source code or what not.
More about emergent properties to come....