Draw a few cells, pick a pattern, or roll the dice.
Count each cell’s eight neighbors, including diagonals.
Every cell updates together. Press Play to watch the next generations unfold.
Every generation is recorded, including births and deaths between rendered frames. The chart keeps the latest 10,000 samples. Editing, resetting, or loading a shape starts a new history; undo and session recovery restore it. Export CSV to keep the recorded values.
Paste RLE, a plain-text .cells pattern, or a Life Lab JSON file. You can also drop a file onto the canvas.
Created for Life Lab. Global novelty has not been established; these are reproducible experiments, with known components credited.
Exporting the current board.
The link contains the cells, name, rule, and generation. Anyone with it can open their own copy.
Keep this pattern in this browser. Export a file or copy a link to use it on another device.
The same seed and settings always produce the same cells, so you can repeat and share experiments.
The grid has no wrapping edges. Practical limits: 50,000 live cells and coordinates within ±1,000,000. B0 rules are unsupported.
Compare shapes from identical starting conditions. Each pattern runs independently under its saved rule. Tests stop when a repeat or extinction is proven, or the limit is reached.
Repeat detection compares exact shapes, including movement, within a memory-bounded history of up to 256 states; it runs for patterns with up to 10,000 cells. “No repeat found” is not a prediction of what happens next.
Each square is either alive or empty. Its eight neighbors include the diagonal squares. In Conway’s Life, a live cell survives with 2 or 3 live neighbors; with fewer or more, it dies. An empty cell becomes alive with exactly 3 live neighbors. All cells change at the same time, based on the previous generation. Draw your starting shape, then press Play to see what develops.
Read more about Conway’s Game of Life on Wikipedia ↗
Editing pauses the simulation. Reset returns to the seed saved when you opened or last edited a pattern. “Set seed” makes the current generation the new reset point. Undo also restores clears, imports, and simulation runs.
⌘ works instead of Ctrl on Mac. Scroll or pinch to zoom; middle-drag, Alt-drag, or two-finger drag to pan. On a focused canvas, arrow keys move a cell cursor and Enter draws or erases.
Your board is automatically restored on this browser. “My patterns” is local to this browser; use links or files to share. Background tabs pause automatically. Pattern references and the RLE format are documented on LifeWiki.
