This is a genuinely fantastic concept and you executed it with style! I think often maths-derived concepts like these are very difficult to turn into a recognizably fun gameplay experience but the way it was done here I think was really good. I could see it being a full game with additional mechanics like creating/removing some number of cells manually to influence the patterns, or even adding cells that follow other Cellular Automata rules aside from Game of Life (such as wireworld or langton's ant).
Viewing post in MEANINGLESS jam comments
Was not familiar with wireworld/langton’s ant, thanks for the suggestions! I can imagine a lot of fun level ideas with both those.
I spent a couple hours trying to figure out if adding/removing blocks would make sense, but ultimately found it too brainmelting/unpredictable to yield satisfying puzzles. Worth trying again though, I think with a less chaotic automata like wireworld it may be more effective.
Thanks for playing!