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About this tool
An interactive simulator for Conway's Game of Life, a cellular automaton where users can create initial configurations and watch how they evolve over time based on simple rules.
Conway's Game of Life is a cellular automaton in which every cell on a grid lives or dies each generation by four rules: a live cell with two or three live neighbours survives, one with fewer than two dies of underpopulation, one with more than three dies of overcrowding, and a dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes alive. This simulator lets you draw cells directly on a 12-pixel grid, step one generation at a time or run continuously from 1 to 30 generations per second, and watch the generation count and live population update as it goes. It is for anyone learning emergence, teaching the automaton, or just wanting to watch a glider cross the screen.
Open Conway's Game of Life on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Click or drag directly on the grid to draw cells — starting on a dead cell draws for the whole stroke and starting on a live cell erases for the whole stroke, so a pattern can be sketched in one drag.
Press Start to run the simulation and Pause to stop it, or press Step to advance exactly one generation while it stays paused; the Speed slider covers 1 to 30 generations per second.
Watch the Live Stats panel for Generation, Population, Grid and Speed, then use Clear to empty the board or Random to reseed it with roughly 28% live cells — both pause the run and reset the generation count to 0.
Clicking a live cell sets the drag to erase and clicking a dead one sets it to draw, so you can sketch a whole pattern in one stroke instead of clicking cell by cell.
Step advances exactly one generation with the simulation paused, which is the only way to actually verify a rule application rather than watch the result.
A stable population with a rising generation count tells you a still life has formed; a cycling one tells you an oscillator has, without you having to eyeball the grid.
Four rules applied to all cells simultaneously: a live cell with fewer than 2 live neighbours dies, a live cell with 2 or 3 survives, a live cell with more than 3 dies, and a dead cell with exactly 3 live neighbours is born. Each cell has 8 neighbours, counting diagonals.
No. Anything beyond the visible board counts as dead, so a glider that reaches the boundary is disrupted rather than reappearing on the opposite side. If you want a pattern to run undisturbed, start it near the middle of the grid.
The speed slider goes from 1 to 30 generations per second, and the simulator waits 1000 divided by that value in milliseconds between generations. Low speeds are for watching a rule take effect; high speeds are for letting a random field settle.
It seeds each cell independently with roughly a 28 percent chance of being alive, which is dense enough to keep evolving for a long time without immediately dying out. It also pauses the simulation and resets the generation counter to zero.