Implementation
Almost Conway: living cells still behave—two or three neighbors and you're fine. But birth asks for a little directional favoritism: you need three neighbors and a live cell to your northeast before you turn on. That tiny asymmetry breaks the usual isotropy; colonies lean and crawl along diagonals you didn't get in vanilla Life. Pair it with a wide random palette each load and it stays fresh without touching the rule.
Breakdown
Biasing birth with a single directional bit is a cheap trick with outsized visual personality. There are 3 key components:
Conway survival
If you're alive, neighborActiveCount of 2 or 3 keeps you alive; otherwise you drop out. That's unchanged from the textbook.
Directional birth
Dead cells require both neighborActiveCount.equals(3) and ne.equal(1)—the northeast read from the buffer must be lit.
If(currentActive.equal(1), () => {
If(neighborActiveCount.equal(2).or(neighborActiveCount.equal(3)), () => next.assign(1))
}).Else(() => {
If(neighborActiveCount.equal(3).and(ne.equal(1)), () => next.assign(1))
})So configurations that would spawn in Life can fail here if the NE witness is dark—growth picks up a preferred diagonal bias.
Wide field and framing
304 × 192 gives room for that bias to compound over generations; scaleX / scaleY framing keeps the action slightly inset. Colors are randomized once per mount like the other lottery sketches in the series.
It's a good stepping stone toward thinking about anisotropic rules without leaving the comfort of small TSL edits.
