Game of Life Simulator
An interactive simulator of Conway's Game of Life — the famous "zero-player" game. You don't play to win: you plant a few cells, press play, and watch four simple rules turn them into living, moving patterns.
Click to draw, drop in a glider gun or a pulsar, and see complexity emerge from almost nothing. Runs entirely in your browser.
The rules, in four lines
Every square is a cell — alive or empty. On each generation all cells update at once, based on how many of their eight touching neighbours are alive:
- A live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies of loneliness.
- A live cell with two or three live neighbours survives.
- A live cell with more than three dies of overcrowding.
- An empty cell with exactly three live neighbours comes to life.
That is the entire game. John Conway published it in 1970, and everything else — gliders, oscillators, guns — is a consequence of those four lines.
How to use the simulator
Click or drag on the grid to draw cells, then press Play. Step advances a single generation, Random fills the board with a soup to see what emerges, and Clear empties it. The speed slider sets generations per second, and Wrap edges makes cells that leave one side reappear on the other, so a glider can circle forever instead of dying against the wall.
Keyboard shortcuts work while the grid is focused: space plays and pauses, S steps, R randomizes, C clears.
Patterns to drop in
- Glider — the famous five-cell shape that walks diagonally across the board.
- Spaceship — a lightweight spaceship that travels in a straight line.
- Pulsar — an oscillator that returns to its starting shape every three generations.
- Glider gun — Gosper's gun, which fires a new glider forever and proved that Life patterns can grow without limit.
FAQ
How do you win Conway's Game of Life?
You do not. It is a zero-player game: you set the starting cells, then the rules take over. The interest is entirely in what those rules build out of your starting pattern.
Why is it called a cellular automaton?
Because the board is a grid of cells and each one updates itself from a fixed local rule, with no central controller. It is the classic demonstration of complex behaviour emerging from very simple parts.
Does it run entirely in my browser?
Yes. The whole simulation is drawn on a canvas on your device. Nothing is uploaded and no account is needed.