I built something similar to this in python once, which was kind of fun. Instead of 1 (alive) or 0 (dead), it was 1 (blue colony), 0 (dead), -1 (green colony),

I built something similar to this in python once, which was kind of fun. Instead of 1 (alive) or 0 (dead), it was 1 (blue colony), 0 (dead), -1 (green colony), and things spawned as a summation of their neighbours. What this meant was the playing field cleared out quite suddenly, but man it could be a colourful explosion! I think with some good thought and a fun interface this could be a really amusing way to spend a weekend.