Spore prototype: BIOME Say hello to another Spore prototype: BIOME. The official Spore site has added it to their Prototypes section. BIOME is a programmable cellular automata simulator that allows users to develop simple SimCity-like grid simulations. The grid-simulations in SimCity were inspired by Conways Life program, which produces amazingly intricate patterns from simple rules BIOME uses a language based on chemical stoichiometry, the notation system used to describe chemical reactions. Cells in a BIOME simulation change state the same way that chemicals change when exposed to other chemicals Systems such as this can be used to simulate phenomena such as forest fires, disease epidemics, animal migration patterns and crystallization BIOME supports both rectangular and spiral cellular automata configurations. The spiral configuration was used to study stochastic, self-propagating star formation (the process whereby the ignition of a star promotes the creation of more stars) on the galactic scale.
