Conway's Game of Life
A zero-player game and classic computer science demonstration. Watch how complex patterns emerge from simple rules.
The Rules
- Survival: A living cell with 2-3 neighbors stays alive
- Birth: A dead cell with exactly 3 neighbors becomes alive
- Death: All other cells die or stay dead
How to use: Click and drag to paint cells on the grid. Try the classic patterns like Glider and Pulsar, or randomize the grid to see what emerges.
Speed
10 fpsAbout This Implementation
This Game of Life uses an 80×80 toroidal grid (edges wrap around) and runs at up to 60 frames per second. The implementation uses double-buffering to correctly compute each generation, ensuring patterns behave exactly as they should according to Conway's original rules from 1970.
The patterns included are classics from the Game of Life pattern catalog: the Glider (a spaceship that moves diagonally), the Blinker and Toad (simple oscillators), and the Pulsar (a complex period-3 oscillator). Each demonstrates different aspects of emergent behavior in cellular automata.