Source note: Originally published on Eric's Advisory Hour Substack on June 22, 2026. Read the canonical post or subscribe there.
When I first fell into AI many years ago there were two big ideas that drew me in like a Jeffersonian inkwell might draw in anyone opposing freedom-by way of Conway’s Game of Life and Mandelbrot. I attempted to understand them in ways like a witch might make sense of the occult. “Sheer math can reveal unpredictable endless worlds of exploration?” Tell me more, my second edition D&D game world building needed every assist it could take.
I assume not everyone put their precious weekend nights into studying Conway over whatever other option they had. So here’s an infographic explaining the idea. The gist is that a few simple rules unleash unbelievable emergent complexity. It’s like… have you ever sent an email to your employer and seen unexpected results? It be like that, you know?
So many examples around the internet of Conway’s Game of Life. Anyway, there’s just not enough time to nerd out out about pixels moving around. Let’s jump to Myles subssion-which combines two ideas you never saw coming.
Myles brings us an innovative take on two big idea- what if you took Helldivers and combined it with Conways’ Game of Life?
Read more at Merlin Forge’s blog at
Related Substack post: GAME OF LIBERTY — an 8-bit territory battle for the soul of a nation — Myles
And yes, I have forged new nations! The font typography treatment is also interesting.
Original source
This local copy preserves the article text, source link, and inline media for the Summer Into AI 2026 competition section. Canonical Substack URL: https://advisoryhour.substack.com/p/summer-into-ai-merlin-forges-game.