February 9, 2026
When your screen grows a soul
Like Game-of-Life, but on Growing Graphs, with WASM and WebGL
Internet hypnotized by a “living” screen — alien vibes vs. tiny DNA vibes
TLDR: A browser simulation inspired by graph-rewriting lets simple rules bloom into wiggly, living-looking webs. Viewers are split between “alien city” and “tiny DNA” vibes, while a cheeky “whoomph” setting and reports of “spindley” behavior fuel playful debate over what, exactly, they’re watching — and why it’s so addictive.
A trippy new browser toy is turning heads: think the classic Game of Life, but the “cells” grow into sprawly webs that wiggle like they’re alive. It runs fast thanks to WASM (a speed-boost for web apps) and WebGL (graphics in your browser), and it’s inspired by Paul Cousin’s graph-rewriting ideas (what’s that?). The community’s reaction? Pure hypnosis. One user just murmured “mesmerizing,” while another declared “Very cool! Feels very alive.” Sci-fi fans called it “Good scifi” with “Dark City” energy and a “Strong alien vibe,” but biology nerds fired back: it “feels like building proteins” and “RNA/DNA molecules.” It’s Team Alien vs. Team Protein and both sides are winning.
Then the chaos agents showed up with settings. One commenter claims that dialing in “8690” with a little “flip probability” triggers a delightful “whoomph” — and yes, the thread instantly went on a whoomph-hunt. Another viewer reported it “gets spindley,” possibly a phone thing, which sparked lighthearted debate over whether it’s a bug, a feature, or just spooky-elegant. The bigger takeaway: people love watching simple rules erupt into complex behavior, and they’re treating this tab like a tiny petri dish with personality. The code might be math, but the vibes are cinema-level — and the comments are the real show.
Key Points
- •An experimental simulation explores emergent complexity via graph-rewriting automata.
- •The approach adapts Game of Life–style dynamics to growing, dynamic graph structures.
- •The simulation’s rules can change both node/edge states and the graph’s topology.
- •WebAssembly (WASM) is used for efficient computation in a web context.
- •WebGL is used to render and visualize the evolving graph in real time.