It is a zero player game, which means that it’s evolution is determined by the initial state and does not required any subsequent data entry. The game board is a flat mesh made up of squares (cells) that extend infinitely in all directions.

Each cell has 8 neighbouring cells, which are those that are close to it, including the diagonals.

  • Cells have two states: Alive or Dead, On or Off.

The state of cells evolves over discrete units of time (we could called turns).
Their status is taken into account to calculate for the next turn.
All cells are updated simultaneously on each turn, following these rules:

  • A dead cell with exactly 3 living neighbouring cells is born.In the next turn it will be alive or on.
  • A living cell with 2 or 3 living neighbouring cells is still alive otherwise it dies and remains dead due to loneliness or overpopulation.
  1. An Introduction to Conway’s The Game of Life — Youtube
  2. Conway’s Game of Life — Wikipedia
  3. What is the Game of Life? — Wonders of math
  4. Conway’s Game of Life — Bitstorm