Show HN: Flourish and Decay, a digital board game built on Conway's Game of Life

I’ve been working on a weird little passion project: Flourish & Decay, a board-/digital hybrid game inspired by slime-mold and Conway’s Game of Life. It's completely decentralized and 100% free to play.

What is it?: A tactical deck-builder where you play action cards / spend resources to place “cells” onto a game board; they live, die, or mutate based on local rules. Compete with other players to grow the largest over 100 generations!

Why I’m sharing: I want feedback from the HN community on:

- The game mechanics – are you able to effectively use Conway's Game of Life to gain a strategic advantage?

- Performance – the app uses instanced meshes and ~many other performance tricks; curious if it runs smoothly on your hardware.

- The computer engine - are computers sufficiently "smart" as to enable fun gameplay?

- General design/UX thoughts.

Try it: flourishanddecay.com (demo link) – works in browser, no install.

The project is open to iteration; rules, balance, and art are all evolving. Would love your thoughts on gameplay, tech stack (React 19 + R3F v9), or just whether the concept makes sense.

Built with React Three Fiber, DREI, NextJS, Trystero and GSAP.

Happy to answer any questions about the anti-entropy gossip networking layer (future online multiplayer), the art pipeline (GLTF-JSX, Draco, WebP), or an eventual physical version.

BONUS:

- Have an idea that would benefit from an Open Source, decentralized, p2p lobby / matchmaking? Hit me up. That is completely decoupled from my core game and I'm trying to carve out time to make it OS.

Thanks for checking it out!