Suprisingly, during development of my minild game, (not finished yet) I created accidental cell automata. Although unpredictable it works and it uses a specific trick. Due to my limited range of gamemaker knowledge, therefore the inability to create a “is this over there” function made me think outside the box. Literally.

The trick

The cell creates a “drone” of sorts that goes either left, right, up or down until it collides with a specific block, if it’s the right block the drone deletes itself and turns that block into the new cell. All of this happens whilst the drone is invisible.

so that’s my little trick and my “go” at cell automata. It’s not really cell automata but it does what it needs to do.

– orane