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Intro to Game of Life

The Game of Life zero-player game invented by the mathematician John Conway in the 70's. The game consists of a board of cells which can either be alive or dead. The game is configured by marking certain cells as alive (while the rest are dead), and the game progresses following certain rules to determine whether dead cells will be (re-)born, or live cells will survive or die.

In Conway's game of life, the rules are simple:

1. Any "dead" cell with exactly 3 live neighbor cells becomes alive.
2. Any "live" cell with exactly 2 or 3 live neighbor cells survives to the next generation.
3. All other cells die, or remain dead.

Conway's intention was to prove the automation was alive based on John von Neumann's definition of life - a creation which can reproduce and simulate a Turing machine. Theoretically, the game is a universal Turing machine: anything that can be computed algorithmically can be computed within The Game of Life.

Game Controls

There main game controls are at the bottom of the screen and can be collapsed by clicking on the blue controls bar.

• / The Play/Stop button starts and stops the game cycle. You can also press spacebar.
• The Skip button advances the game one generation.
• The Zoom slider magnifies and shrinks the game board. You can also press ctrl + left and ctrl + right.
• The Speed slider makes the game progress faster or slower. You can also press ctrl + up and ctrl + down.
• The Drag tool allows you to click and drag the game board around. You can also pan by pressing the arrow keys.
• The Click tool allows you to click to toggle the state of any cell on the board.
• The center button pans the canvas back to its center. You can also press ctrl + c.
• The Clear button clears all live cells on the canvas. You can also press ctrl + d.
• The settings button will open a dialog that allows you to change the Colors on the board, Import an existing pattern, Export the current pattern, Reset the board, change the Render Mode, or change the Rule String. You can also press ctrl + s.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The following keyboard shortcuts are available when the app is in focus.

Rule String

The rule string dictates how the game works. It took John Conway spent years coming up with his rule string (b3/s23). The first part of the rulestring (b3) means that any dead cells with 3 live neighbors will be born (as if by reproduction). The second part (s23) means that any live cells that have either 2 or 3 live neighbor cells will survive - or live on to the next generation. All other cells will die. This is the default configuration for Conway's Life, but may others have been tried and used.

You can change the rule string by clicking on the Settings button in the Controls Pane (or pressing ctrl + s) and changing the values of the rule string inputs.

Render Mode

The game can render the canvas on an HTML5 Canvas element, or on SVG. Each has its pros and cons, some of which may be browser-specific. Both SVG and Canvas mode have been tested in modern versions of Firefox and Chrome and work fine in each, but if you experience trouble with the app switching the render mode may help.

By default, the app renders on Canvas. You can change this setting by clicking on the Settings button in the Controls Pane (or pressing ctrl + s) and toggling the render mode.

Pattern Import & Export

You can import .RLE pattern files form your computer, or you can choose one from the pattern library by clicking on the Settings button in the Controls Pane (or pressing ctrl + s), then import. There, you will be able to drag or choose a pattern file, or open the pattern library. You may also download RLE files from the library to use elsewhere.

In the Settings, you also have the option to export the pattern currently shown on the screen. This requires that you name the patterns. You may optionally specify the author and a description.