This is one of the strangest games at all. It is not a game in the usual sense: You just set a pattern that then evolves on its own.
It is not really a simulation either, not in the sense that it simulates something from real life.
Life was invented in 1970 by John Conway. He first played it on a Go board, but many patterns quickly proved too complex without the help of a computer. Still in the same year a program was written by M. J. T. Guy and S. R. Bourne (who should, eight years later, create the most popular Unix shell) for a PDP-7. It has since been implemented many times, somtimes with a few added features that tried to make a "real game" out of it, but usually under preservation of the original rules.
Every cell has eight neighbors:
N N N N C N N N N
The rules are simple:
Some patterns will be stable. These are called still life objects.
o o o o o o
o o o o o o
o o o o
Others will oscillate. This very simple example is called the blinker. These two patterns will alternate permanently.
o o o o o o
Some will move across the screen. They are called gliders. (The dots are only there to make the pattern display correctly. They have no significance whatever.)
. o . . o o . . o o .
Other patterns show an even more complex behavior.
For a while it was thought that every pattern would develop into a state of stability (either still or oscillating) in the end, but it was soon proved that infinitely evolving patterns are possible.
Some sites with general or in-depth information about the game:
Some old and new implementations:
