I love this concept so much, I hope you keep working on it!
Some information on the rules used by the cellular automata would help, I felt like I was clicking randomly instead of planning. I know exploring and working out the rules is part of the game, but CA are all about complicated results from simple rules - trying to work out the rules from the results is pretty challenging! Maybe some feedback when a rule is activated (eg, highlight the cells that a rule was triggered by)?
Also, the visual style was quite dark and felt more like something digital than natural - maybe an earth tone colour palette?