Conway’s Game of Life — Interactive Simulator

Draw on the grid, press Play, tweak rules (B/S), enable wrap, and share your creation. Runs entirely in your browser.

Controls

12 gen/s
25%

Tip: click or drag to toggle cells • Shift = erase • Ctrl/⌘ = draw

Simulation

Generation: 0
Population: 0

What is Conway’s Game of Life?

Conway’s Game of Life is a cellular automaton — a simple, grid-based system that evolves in discrete steps according to local rules. Each cell is either alive or dead. On every generation, each cell looks at its eight neighbors and updates using birth (B) and survival (S) conditions. The classic Life rules are B3/S23: a dead cell with exactly three live neighbors is born; a live cell survives with two or three neighbors; otherwise it dies. Despite the simplicity, Life produces gliders, oscillators, spaceships, and even universal computation.

How to use this simulator

  • Draw by clicking or dragging. Hold Ctrl/⌘ to force draw, Shift to erase.
  • Play/Pause to run; adjust Speed (generations/sec); use Step for one generation.
  • Pick a Pattern (Glider, Pulsar, Gosper Gun, LWSS, R-pentomino) and place it centered.
  • Toggle Wrap to make edges connect (toroidal world), useful for spaceships.
  • Try other rules (e.g., HighLife B36/S23 or Seeds B2/S).
  • Use Random fill to explore emergent behavior; tune density for different textures.
  • Press Copy Share Link to get a URL that recreates the grid, rules, speed, and wrap mode.

Why it matters

Life is used worldwide in mathematics, computer science, complexity science, and education. It demonstrates how complex patterns emerge from simple local interactions, and it’s a gentle entry point into cellular automata, simulation, and rule-based systems. This implementation runs entirely client-side for privacy and speed.

References & Further Reading

External links open in a new tab. Not affiliated with Starlight Tools.

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