First things first. The badge has three modes: normal "Conway's game-of-life" mode, Nyan Cat mode, and menu mode.

In the normal game mode or Nyan Cat mode, the up and down buttons will adjust the brightness and the left and right buttons will adjust the speed.

In game mode, tapping the select button will cycle through the game patter slots. Tapping select in Nyan Cat mode does nothing. Nyan Cat don't care.

- Note: there are 8 pattern slots and 4 pre-programmed patterns. More on this later.

You can enter menu mode by holding the select button for more than 1 second.

In menu mode, the left and right buttons cycle through the menu options and the up and down buttons change the values for the current menu option. Tapping the select button will save the changes and exit out of the menu (back to either game mode or Nyan Cat mode)

The menu options include:

• Game Speed: Changes how fast the game runs or Nyan Cat plays. Select a speed from 0 to 7
• Light Level: Changes the brightness from 0 to 7
• Badge Mode: Switch between Normal and Nyan Cat
• Loop Mode: Repeat on Stall or Stop. If the badge detects that the game is not updating from one cycle to the next, it can restart the pattern in Repeat on Stall mode
• Select Slot: Selects which pattern slot is loaded in normal game mode from slot 0 to 7
• Edit Slot: Special menu which lets you edit a pattern from slot 0 through 7
  
  • More on this to follow

Editing Slots:

As mentioned above, there are 8 pattern slots and 4 preprogrammed slots. If none of the 8 patter slots have been edited, the preprogrammed patterns will be selected. Since there are only 4 preprogrammed patterns and 8 slots, when cycling through the slots preprogrammed pattern 0 matches up to slot 0 and 4, 1 matches to 1 and 5, 2 matches to 2 and 6, and 3 matches to 3 and 7.

If you edit slot 0 or 4, you will start with the pattern from preprogrammed pattern 0. However, if you save your edit, that will be the pattern now used from that slot. For instance, if you edit slot 4, initially the patter you edit will be from preprogrammed 0, but when you save, you will be saving into slot 4, so that will be what is show when selecting slot 4.

When editing a pattern a cursor will indicate the cell to be changed. The cursor is a cross with the center being the selected cell. Tapping the select button will toggle the cell on or off. When done editing the pattern, hold the select button for over 1 second to return to the menu. This menu will allow you to do the following:

• Save: saves the changes to the pattern and returns to the selected mode (either game or Nyan Cat). Note the edited pattern may not be the currently selected pattern that the game is running.
• Cancel: ignores the changes and returns to the selected mode, same as Save.
• Back: returns to the editor to continue editing the pattern.
• Reset: resets the pattern to the matching preprogrammed slot.

One final function: Reset all.

-Holding all of the directional buttons when powering on will clear all of the game slots and saved settings.