Gen
Alive
Paused
Your finger
Drop in a pattern
How to play
- Tap or drag on the board to draw some live cells.
- Press Play (or Step for one generation at a time).
- Drop in a pattern, or tick different boxes to invent a new rule.
| Do this | Phone | Keyboard |
|---|---|---|
| Draw / erase cells | Tap or drag | Arrows move, Space flips a cell (on the board) |
| Draw or erase mode | Buttons | D draw, E erase |
| Play / Pause | Play button | P |
| One step | Step button | N |
| Random / Clear | Buttons | R random, X clear |
| Speed, rules, patterns | Slider, boxes, buttons | Tab to them |
What's happening?
- Every square is a cell. It's alive (bright) or dead (dark).
- Each step, every cell counts its 8 neighbours. That's all it looks at.
- Conway's rule, B3/S23: a dead cell with exactly 3 live neighbours is born. A live cell with 2 or 3 survives. Everything else dies.
- From those tiny rules you get blinkers, gliders that crawl away, and guns that fire gliders forever. Nobody programmed those in.
- The board wraps: walk off one edge and you come back on the other.
Try this: drop in an R-pentomino (just 5 cells) and press Play. How many generations until it calms down? Then switch to HighLife (add B6) and try again.