The Game of Life

No, it's not the board game.

John Conway's Game of Life is the sort of video game that I'm sure most of you would find highly unusual - it is a game of cellular automation, meaning you determine the initial position and the game evolves without any further input from the player. Here is how it works:

It takes place on a two-dimensional grid. Every square, or cell, can be either live or dead. Every cell has exactly eight neighbours, and the state of a cell after a generation depends on the states of the cell's current neighbours. For each generation:

• Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.
  
• Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
  
• Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
  
• Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

I find this game fascinating because of how simple it is but how quickly and amazingly the patterns can change and evolve, and the way real algorithms can be produced.

You can play a demo here. You can also easily find a full version of the game online.

Just to get you interested, this pattern is known as a glider. The glider moves continually by reproducing itself in a different location every four generations.



This pattern is known as the "glider gun" because it remains stationary and ceaselessly fires off gliders without changing its own configuration.



This is a "glider gun puffer" because it moves itself and leaves glider guns in its wake.