Video Life

This is a vid I made of the Game Video Life for the atari 2600, widely regarded as one of, if not the, rarest game in the 2600 library. Thankfully, the Rom is widely available, which is good, because it means we all can benefit from the absolute genius if this game's design.

Each of the game's visual patterns derive points on a grid, and the game then proceeds to update itself at regular intervals. As it does, each point on the grid will either become lit, unlit, or unchanged depending on the number of lit points in it's direct vicinity.

While this makes for some interesting eye candy, the real artistry is in the way that certain stable patterns will simply form themselves out of the chaos. This is known in the science world as "emergent phenomena."


oh, and sorry about the quality. I filmed each of these with my digital camera, and tried to focus on on more interesting bits of activity, although in more than a few cases, after watching the playback, I found much more interesting activity taking place elsewhere.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Games
• art
• video
• life
• game
• emergent

[jaspertine9]

Dammit, I have no idea why the audio is so clippy! Iot's not like that on my file, just when I play it on the site. Anyone know how to fix this?

[TClaymore]

Ah, the good ol' Life program! This always was fascinating to watch, and an excellent tool for studying emergent behavior and for creating dazzling visual displays. Thanks for linking me to it.

It's a little blurry and hard to see, but it's still pretty cool watching.