About the algorithm
I took Conway's Game of Life and
modified it so that motionless "organisms" tend to die (for example the 2x2 square). In order to do
that, I added a value associated with each cell which I called for some reason its age. When a cell
stays alive in the same location, it gets slightly "decayed" (a certain numerical factor subtracted
from its age). When a new cell is generated, it gets the minimal age of its neighbors with an
addition of a "growth factor". If the age of a cell gets to 0, it dies. I also added a slight fadeout
after the cell dies. This is purely graphical and does not affect the data algorithm.
The code is sort of comprehensible, but this was written as a quick hack. So feel free to poke around, and if you have any questions let me know.