Quick start guide

Start here

1. The app opens on a sphere of cells in a 15×15×15 box, under the rule B4-5/S4-6, in Simple mode. A card explains the rule; press Run on it, or in the dock under the world, or press Space.
2. Drag to orbit the world, scroll (or pinch) to zoom, right-drag to pan.
3. Under Choose a starting shape in the control panel, pick Cross, Cube or Sphere. Random shape starts another pattern under the same rule; Random rule switches to another named rule and restarts the world from the start that rule grows best from; in Advanced mode, Find rules… tries random rules and keeps the lively ones.
4. Under Choose a rule, pick any of the 30 named rules. Each one restarts the world from its own start, so it opens on something worth watching.
5. When you want more, switch to Advanced at the top of the panel: world size, rules, editing cells, effects and the rest.
6. 2D | 3D | 4D, beside Simple | Advanced, changes the dimension: Conway's original game on a flat board, or a four-dimensional world shown in 3D slices.

Open the simulation →

What the Game of Life is

A "zero-player" simulation published by the mathematician John Conway in 1970. You set up a pattern of live cells and press play; every generation, each cell lives or dies by how many of its neighbours are alive. Simple local rules give gliders that move, oscillators that pulse and structures that grow.

On a flat grid a cell has 8 neighbours. In 3D it has 26: the cells that share a face, an edge or a corner with it. That changes which rules work, as From 2D to 3D explains with examples you can run. To see the classic 2D patterns (block, blinker, glider and more), open 2D mode or read the 2D Game of Life.

The rules

A rule is written in B/S notation. B3/S23, Conway's rule, means a dead cell is born (B) with exactly 3 live neighbours and a live cell survives (S) with 2 or 3; every other cell dies or stays empty. The app's default 3D rule, B4-5/S4-6, means born with 4 or 5 live neighbours, surviving with 4 to 6. Ranges like 4-6 and lists like 3,6-8 both work.

• Named rules. 30 rules in three groups (9 Classic, 8 Explorer, 13 from Softology's collection), as cards under Choose a rule in the Simulate tab (Simple mode lists the Classic nine, Life 4555 and Coral). Picking one restarts the world from the start it grows best from, the same world every time; N tries another seed. On a computer, clicking the rule line under the world's name opens them; on a phone, the rule sheet has a Named rules button. The rule list explains each one.
• More than two states. In B4/S4/C5 a cell that fails to survive takes three generations to fade, and nothing is born in its place meanwhile. The rule field also reads Softology's order, survive/birth/states/neighbourhood: 4/4/5/M.
• Counting. Weighted counting scores a face neighbour 3, an edge 2 and a corner 1 (sums up to 50). The von Neumann neighbourhood looks only at the 6 face neighbours.
• The rule strip. Under the world's name, one square per neighbour count (0–26): the B row lights the counts that give birth, the S row those that keep a cell alive. Click a square to switch it; reset goes back to the rule before your edits. On a touch screen, tap the strip or the rule line for a larger rule sheet. It works in Simple mode too.

The controls

The dock, under the world

• Run, Back, Step, Restart: run or pause (Space), one generation back or forward (, .), and back to generation 0 with the same seed (R), so a random start comes back identical.
• Edit (E): paint cells one slice at a time.
• Speed: 0.5 to 20 generations a second (5 to start with), up to 60 for members; [ and ] step through it.
• View: fit the world (0), the five camera views (1–5) and auto-orbit (O).
• Charts: population, births and deaths over time, and how old the live cells are.
• Capture: save an image, record a video (V), save a 3D model (STL for 3D printing, MagicaVoxel .vox or glTF .glb), ambient mode (A, a screensaver that moves from world to world) and fullscreen (F).
• Timeline: the line across the top of the dock is the population over the generations the app keeps (up to 200). Click or drag it to go back, or focus it and use the arrow keys, Home and End. Going back keeps the later generations until you press Run or Step or edit a cell, which continues from there.

The control panel

• Tabs: Simulate (patterns, named rules, rules, size, playback, editing), Appearance (themes, shapes, effects, lighting, camera, VR and AR) and More (your account, and Help & shortcuts). The magnifier, or ⌘/Ctrl K, searches every control; the gear opens Settings.
• Simple and Advanced: Simple mode keeps a 15³ world with three patterns, eleven named rules, six themes, two cell shapes, three views and the pattern library. Advanced mode shows everything else: the other rules and Find rules, the Camera group, ghost cells, the floor grid, cutaway, slice view and the .vox and .glb exports.
• Moving it: hide the panel with P or the × in its header, and bring it back with Controls at the top right. Drag it by its header and resize it from the corner. On a phone it is a sheet you pull up from the bottom.
• Auto-pause: the world pauses itself when every cell has died and, while "Stop when the world repeats" is on in Playback, when nothing changes any more or when it starts repeating.

Sharing

Share this world, at the top right, opens a dialog with a preview: copy a link to this exact generation, with its rule and look, make a short link, copy embed code for another web page, or download the world as a file. A world grown from a pattern travels as the pattern and its seed, so even a big one fits in a link of a few hundred characters.

Keyboard and mouse

Shortcuts are ignored while a text field has focus: click the world first. 2D and 4D mode add a few keys of their own; the app's list, under Help & shortcuts in the More tab (H), shows the ones for the mode you are in.

Patterns

24 patterns in five groups: Random, Forms, Planes, Special and Engineered. Simple mode shows Cross, Cube and Sphere. Random starts are seeded, so Restart brings back the same one and N gives a new seed.

The Pattern library keeps worlds you make; signed in, it is kept in your account.

Performance

• World size: bigger worlds are heavier. Start around 15 to 25 per side. Free worlds go up to 30 per side, members' up to 100 (a million cells); the app warns above 500,000 cells. Change the size in Size & bounds (Advanced mode) and press Apply & restart.
• Speed: more generations a second means more work. [ slows it down.
• Effects: ambient occlusion, soft shadows and bloom are full-screen passes. Brick cells cost more than Rounded or Cube; Cube is the lightest on big worlds.
• Settings → Performance: Render quality Auto (the default) lowers the pixel ratio and effects when the frame rate drops and raises them again when it recovers; Low turns off shadows and every full-screen effect. Performance mode draws simpler cells in big worlds, and turns itself on for a visit when the frame rate stays low. Renderer chooses between the graphics card (WebGPU, where the browser has it) and WebGL.

Troubleshooting

It runs slowly

• Use a smaller world in Size & bounds (Advanced mode).
• Lower the speed in the dock, or press [.
• Switch to the Cube shape.
• Set Render quality to Low, or turn on Performance mode, in Settings → Performance.

Nothing happens when I press Run

• The world may have paused itself: every cell died, or, while "Stop when the world repeats" is on, it stopped changing or started repeating. The line under the counters says extinct, still life or period n. Press Keep running in the notification, or switch the toggle off in Playback.
• Press Restart (R) or pick another pattern, then Run.
• Check the speed: 0.5 generations a second is one every two seconds. ] speeds up.

I can't find a control

Switch to Advanced at the top of the panel: Playback, Size & bounds, Rules, Edit cells, Effects, Lighting, Camera, Find rules and VR / AR only appear there. Check the tab (Simulate, Appearance or More), or search the controls with ⌘/Ctrl K. If the whole panel is gone, press P. A control under a Member note comes with a membership.

Shortcuts do nothing

A text field probably has focus. Click the world, then try again.

Something is broken

Report a problem, under Help & shortcuts in the More tab or in Settings → Feedback, sends a description of what went wrong; you can see exactly what is sent first.

Things to try

First

• Run the Sphere and watch how it changes.
• Press Random rule a few times and compare what each rule grows from its start.
• Click squares in the rule strip to change the rule under the same world, and watch what changes.
• Try Random at 5%, 15% and 50% density (Advanced mode).
• Switch between the Rounded and Cube shapes, and try the free themes in the Appearance tab.
• Turn on auto-orbit (O) and watch from all sides.

Then

• In Advanced mode, under Choose a rule, try Softology's rules (445, Amoeba, Pyroclastic, Crystal Growth): each opens on the start it grows best from, and N tries another seed.
• Open Find rules…, hover the cards, and press More like this on one you like.
• Pick Life 4555: it opens on Carter Bays' 10-cell glider. Run it and watch it fly.
• Paint your own pattern with Edit (E), or Shift+click any cell to switch it.
• Compare Standard and Weighted counting, and the Moore and von Neumann neighbourhoods.
• Try the boundaries in Size & bounds: Wrap, Fixed and Reflective.
• In 2D mode, turn on the time stack and watch a glider gun's history pile up.
• Take the 4D tour.

Look for still lifes (nothing changes), oscillators (repeating) and spaceships (moving). The line under the counters says still life or period n when the app spots one.

What am I looking at?

Each block is a cell. Every generation, each cell counts its live neighbours and lives or dies by the rule. Cells fade from the young colour to the old colour as they age, and a cell that dies leaves a fading ghost. D colours cells by what just happened to them instead: born, survived or died.

Free and members' features

Everything above is free, without an account: every pattern and rule, Advanced mode, editing, screenshots, share links, 2D mode, 4D worlds up to 20⁴ and 3D worlds up to 30 per side. A membership adds bigger worlds, all 24 themes (7 are free; the others preview for 30 seconds), your own colours, lighting, glow and bloom, videos longer than 10 seconds, more saved patterns, 3D model export and VR / AR. Locked controls carry a Member note with See plans.

What a membership includes →