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Game of Life — Interactive Cellular Automaton

Interactive Conway’s Game of Life — draw cells, play generations, step, randomize. Runs entirely in your browser.

Free No signup Client-side Privacy friendly Updated

Click & drag on the grid to toggle cells, then press Play.

Generation: Population: Alive

How to use

  1. 1 Click and drag on the grid to draw living cells (or use Random).
  2. 2 Press Play to run generations, or Step to advance one at a time.
  3. 3 Watch the four rules decide which cells live, die, or are born.
  4. 4 Adjust Speed, or Clear to start from an empty grid.

Why use this tool

  • See a cellular automaton produce complex behaviour from four simple rules.
  • Discover still lifes, oscillators (like the blinker), and gliders that move.
  • A famous example of emergence and Turing-complete computation.
  • Runs entirely in your browser. No signup, no uploads.

Frequently asked questions

What is Conway’s Game of Life?

A zero-player cellular automaton on a grid of cells that are alive or dead. Each generation, cells update simultaneously by four simple rules based on their living neighbours.

What are the rules?

A live cell with 2 or 3 live neighbours survives; otherwise it dies (underpopulation or overpopulation). A dead cell with exactly 3 live neighbours becomes alive.

What patterns can appear?

Still lifes (block), oscillators (blinker, toad), spaceships (glider), and complex constructions — the Game of Life is Turing complete.

Who invented it?

Mathematician John Conway in 1970. It popularised cellular automata and remains a touchstone example of emergent complexity.

What is Conway’s Game of Life?

Conway’s Game of Life is a zero-player cellular automaton on a grid where each cell is alive or dead. Every generation cells update by four rules based on living neighbours, producing still lifes, oscillators, and gliders from simple local rules.

Features

Generational animation

Watch patterns evolve step by step under Conway's rules.

Complexity

O(cells) per generation; space O(cells) for the grid.

100% private

Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.

Example

Input

blinker (3 cells in a row)

Output

oscillates horizontal ↔ vertical every generation (period 2)

Common use cases

  1. 1

    Explore emergence

    See how simple local rules create complex global behavior.

  2. 2

    Classic patterns

    Watch blinkers, gliders, and other well-known patterns.

  3. 3

    Teach cellular automata

    Introduce automata and the concept of Turing-completeness.

Summary

Zerethon's Game of Life visualizer runs Conway's cellular automaton in your browser: each cell lives or dies each generation based on its eight neighbors (a live cell survives with 2–3 neighbors; a dead cell is born with exactly 3). Each generation is computed in O(cells) time. Simple rules produce complex patterns like blinkers, gliders, and guns.

Category
Algorithm
Pricing
Free
Privacy
Browser-based
Signup
Not required

References

Privacy

Your data never leaves your browser unless explicitly stated. Conway’s Game of Life runs entirely client-side — no server upload, no logging, no tracking of your input.

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