Immigration Game Screensaver
The Immigration Game is a multi-color variant of Conway's Game of Life. Cells are born and die by the same classic birth/survival rules, but each new cell inherits whichever color is the majority among its three live parent neighbors — turning ordinary Life into a visible contest between spreading color factions.
How the Immigration Game screensaver works
Every live cell carries one of several real colors, not just "alive" or "dead".
Birth and survival still follow Conway's classic rule: born with exactly 3 live neighbors, survive with 2 or 3.
When a new cell is born, it takes on whichever color is the majority among its three parent neighbors — so a color that surrounds a birth site effectively wins that cell.
Over many generations this turns ordinary Life dynamics into a visible territorial contest, as colors spread, merge and get pushed back by rival colors.
A worked example
Watch two colors meet along a shared front — wherever one color has more live neighbors near the boundary, new cells born there inherit that color, so the border visibly shifts in that color's favor generation by generation.
Settings & tips
- Starting density sets how much of the grid begins alive, split randomly between colors.
- Generations / sec controls the animation speed.
- The board reseeds with a fresh random mix of colors once one color dominates.
Frequently asked questions
- How is this different from ordinary Conway's Life?
- The birth and survival rules are identical — the only addition is that every new cell inherits a color from its parents, visualizing which faction is winning.
- Can one color wipe out all the others?
- Yes — a strong faction can eventually dominate the whole board, at which point the grid reseeds.
- Is a key needed?
- No — it's a pure local computation.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.