This puzzle is based on the rules of John Conway's Game of Life. Familiarity with the Game of Life, however, is neither necessary nor, I believe, particularly helpful in solving the puzzle.
Normal sudoku rules apply.
Still Life: Shade some cells in the grid such that the (up to) eight cells neighboring each shaded cell contain exactly 2 or 3 shaded cells and the neighbors of each unshaded cell do not contain exactly 3 shaded cells. The digit placed in an unshaded cell must match the given digit if present. The digit placed in a shaded cell must not match.
f-puzzles: https://f-puzzles.com/?id=2h5djmk6
CTC: https://tinyurl.com/2r6zthm5
Solution code: Digits in shaded cells in column 1 followed by digits in unshaded cells in column 9.
on 14. December 2022, 20:52 by Kafkapharnaum
That's pretty incredible that two people came up independently with Still Life puzzles, each with their own take on it, that was really cool :D I'm probably Sktx's Still Life puzzle's biggest fan, and I even set a few myself using his ruleset, so I knew I had to try this one
Or actually, I'm not the best at killer, so I played it safe here and picked this one, but congrats on getting the first Still Life puzzle rated on the site! Super happy to see GoL get some love :D
-I actually wasn't aware of Sktx's Still Life puzzles until after I'd posted this one here. I've since gone back and done one (and plan to do more when I have the chance). Given, how well known GoL is, though, I can't say it surprises me that others thought of it first. Either way, it strikes me as an interesting way to organize a shading puzzle that doesn't end up just using the same deductions that are pretty common to cave, yin-yang, or nurikabe. Anyway, that's a long way of saying thanks! -SSG
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Haha, my pleasure! I was kind of on hiatus puzzle-wise, but that was just too tempting!