Thanks a lot for your well thought comment! I understand what you say; I admit I developed Strata in equal parts art piece and game. Most of the effort went towards caring for the overall experience and telling the story I wanted to tell, and less so in making an engaging and fun game. These two directions frequently contended with one another, and in doubt I went with the art, acknowledging it would make for a worse video-game
As I wasn’t sure how to turn cellular automata into a game to begin with, this was an exercise of pure experimentation to see what would come out of it. And as such comments like yours are gold for whatever (if anything) will come next for these ideas. So thanks a lot!