History VideoGame / ConwaysGameOfLife

** Eaters are a class of patterns capable of destroying certain objects while repairing the resulting damage. The most common of them is the eater 1 or fishhook, which can destroy a variety of objects such as loaves, pre-beehives, gliders, blinkers, and can attack another eater to form a period 33 oscillator.

* NotTheIntendedUse: [=LifeHistory=]'s gray cells, originally intended to be used as a boundary between two regions of the Life universe. They are [[CompleteImmortality invulnerable]], and [[TouchOfDeath instantly kill off]] any living cells next to them. This turned out be useful for creating all sorts of patterns not possible in ordinary Life, so much so that [[https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=390 an entire forum thread]] was made dedicated to it.

* LongLived: Methuselahs are unstable patterns which are noted for lasting an unusually long time relative to their size. The most famous of these is the "R-pentomino", a 5-cell pattern which lasts for a total of 1,103 generations before finally stabilizing into a mess of still lifes, blinkers, and escaping gliders.[[note]]For comparison, all eleven other pentominoes stabilize in ten generations or fewer.[[/note]]

* NonIndicativeName: There's an object named "ship", but it's a still life despite sharing its name with the colloquial shortening of "spaceship".

* RandomDropBooster: Using different symmetry options when soup searching can make certain objects (usually those exhibting some form of symmetry themselves) ''far'' more common. apgsearch in particular even supports custom symmetries[[note]]in which arbitrary patterns are fed into the program via standard input[[/note]] for if one is looking for specific types of objects.

* TheUnpronounceable: The oscillator "$rats". It's unclear how, or if, the dollar sign is supposed to be pronounced.

** "[=LifeHistory=]", which uses dark blue to indicate the "envelope" of cells which were previously alive, and also has three additional colors to be used for annotating patterns. "[=LifeSuper=]" and "[=LifeUltra=]" are extensions of this, and each contain [[ExaggeratedTrope ''dozens'']] [[ExaggeratedTrope of colors]].

** "[=LifeHistory=]", which uses dark blue to indicate the "envelope" of cells which were previously alive, and also has three additional colors to be used for annotating patterns. "[=LifeSuper=]" and "[=LifeUltra=]" are extensions of this, and each contain [[ExaggeratedTrope ''dozens'' of colors]].

** Many of the polyominoes (patterns where all cells are orthogonally connected) with 4 and 5 cells have single-letter names, as well as a few of the more notable ones with 6 and 7 cells. Examples include the T-tetromino, the R-pentomino, and the B-heptomino.

** The block can survive any single cell being removed, recovering in just one generation.generation.
** Eaters are a class of patterns capable of destroying certain objects while repairing the resulting damage. The most common of them is the eater 1 or fishook, which can destroy a variety of objects such as loaves, pre-beehives, gliders, blinkers, and can attack another eater to form a period 33 oscillator.

* VideoGameRandomizer: Soup searching programs. The most notable of these is apgsearch, which [[RandomlyGeneratedLevel randomly generates]] 16x16 soups using a hashing algorithm and runs them until completion.

* FusionDissonance: Due to the chaotic nature of the Game of Life, the end result of a glider synthesis (or a collision between ''any'' set of two or more objects, for that matter) usually bears little or no resemblance to the initial mergers.

* NotTheIntendedUse: [=LifeHistory=]'s gray cells, originally intended to be used as a boundary between two regions of the Life universe. They are [[CompleteImmortality invulnerable]], and [[TouchOfDeath instantly kill off]] any living cells next to them. This turned out be useful for creating all sorts of patterns not possible in ordinary Life, so much so that an entire forum thread was made dedicated to it.

* AnimalThemeNaming: Plenty of spaceships have names based on their look or behavior. As such, they have names like Wasp, Turtle, Swan, Spider, Dragon, Seal, Lobster and Copperhead. Macro-spaceships based on a fuse reaction all have a name based on bugs, due to the first one being called the "caterpillar". Hence, we also have the shield bug, waterbear, silverfish, and centipede.

* NounVerber:
** Wickstretchers, which infinitely extend a repeatable pattern. Specific types of wickstretchers are called boatstretchers, linestretchers, antstretchers, etc.
** Spacefillers, which gradually take over the entire Life universe and fill it with a repeating pattern.
** Any oscillator named "p(period) (object) hassler".
** The spaceships "hivenudger", "hooknudger", and "comma-pusher".
** The blockstacker and the bricklayer, both of which create infinitely long lines of blocks.
** The line crosser, which temporarily cuts a diagonal line of cells, allowing a glider to pass through, and then repairs it.
* NumericalThemeNaming:
** Due to the sheer number of patterns known, many of them are given numerical names [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin describing their properties]]:
*** Methuselahs are named after how many generations they last before permanently settling into a collection of stable objects. "52513M", for example, lasts for a total of 52,513 generations.
*** Oscillators are named after the minimum number of cells they contain, along with their period. "32P21", for example, is a pattern that repeats every 21 generations and has a minimum population of 32 cells.
*** Spaceships are named similarly to oscillators, except their names also specify how far they travel during each cycle. For example, before it was given the name "[[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail Sir Robin]]", "282P6H2V1" was a placeholder name indicating that it is a 282-cell pattern that, every six generations, moves two cells horizontally and one cell vertically.
*** When two objects have the same population and period/speed, they are distinguished by further numbers separated by periods. "28P7.1", "28P7.2", and "28P7.3" are all names given to three different oscillators with period 7, all of which have exactly 28 cells in their minimum phases.
*** Sawtooths are patterns which grow without bound but always eventually return to a certain minimum population. "Sawtooth 177", for example, is a pattern that returns to a minimum population of 177 infinitely many times.
** Another popular naming scheme for oscillators in particular is to name them after their discoverer. For example, in 1994 Achim Flammenkamp discovered a series of oscillators now known as "Achim's p8", "Achim's p11", "Achim's p16", "Achim's ''other'' p16", and "Achim's p144".
** Eaters 1, 2, 3, and 4, all named for their ability to "eat" certain nearby objects (most often gliders) while emerging from the reaction unscathed.
** Mosquitos 1 through 5 are a series of patterns constructed by Nick Gotts in 1998, all of which experience quadratic growth.
** The elevener and the fourteener are still lifes with 11 and 14 cells respectively.
** The pentadecathlon is named after the fact that it has a total of 15 phases. However, reactions exist which can shift the pentadecathlon between phases, giving it a different period. The resulting oscillators are sometimes referred to by Greek names, such as "tetradecathlon" for period 14 and "monoicosathlon" for period 21.

* ShoutOutThemeNaming:
** The boojum, the Snark, and the Bandersnatch, all of them patterns that are capable of reflecting or shifting input gliders, are all references to fictional animal species from ''[[Literature/TheHuntingOfTheSnark The Hunting of the Snark]]''.
** The methuselahs Edna, Fred, Wilma, and Homer follow a chain pattern: each one is named after a character from a different piece of media whose spouse's name happens to be the previous entry. Edna is named after Methuselah's wife in the Book of Jubilees, Fred is named after Dr. Fred Edison from ''[[VideoGame/ManiacMansion Maniac Mansion]]'', Wilma is named after Wilma Flintstone from ''[[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones The Flintstones]]'', and Homer is named after Homer Parrish from ''[[Film/TheBestYearsOfOurLives The Best Years of Our Lives]]''.
* ThemeNaming:
** The "composers", a series of similar-looking constellations that occasionally evolve from randomness. These include [[Music/LudwigVanBeethoven Beethoven]], [[Music/FryderykChopin Chopin]], [[Music/JohannSebastianBach Bach]], [[Music/RobertSchumann Schumann]], [[Music/IgorStravinsky Stravinsky]], [[Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart Mozart]], and [[Music/BelaBartok Bartok]].
** The oscillators known as Rich's p16, Rob's p16, and Charity's p16, all of which were discovered with the program apgsearch, all have names relating to money. The latter has also been referred to as "Rity's p16", for AddedAlliterativeAppeal.

* VehicularThemeNaming: The infinitely-extensible still lifes "boat", "ship", and "barge".
* VerberCreature:
** Breeders, which are patterns that exhibit quadratic growth, i.e. they periodically produce offspring which in turn periodically produce their own offspring.
** Bouncers and bumpers, which can reflect gliders 90 degrees.
** Crawlers and climbers, in which an unstable object is periodically stabilized, allowing it to move at a certain speed.
** Puffers, which periodically "puff" out debris as they move.
** Eaters, which are able to consume certain types of objects without being harmed.
** The baker, a fuse that leaves behind loaves as it burns.
** The blinker, a simple oscillator that switches between two phases.
** The blocker, an oscillator that can sometimes be used to "block" a stream of gliders, deleting half of them.
** The caterer, an oscillator that "serves" up a single cell every 3 generations.
** The glider, named so because it undergoes a glide reflection every 2 generations.
** The harvester is a fuse that produces a 4-cell block for every 4 cells of a diagonal line it burns.
** The loafer, named as such both because it pushes a loaf around, but also because at the time of discovery it was the slowest known orthogonal ship (moving one cell every 7 generations), hence, it "loafs" around.
** The snacker, which consists of four eaters "snacking" on a pentadecathlon, changing its period from 15 to 9.
** The sprayer, an oblique spaceship with an appendage on the front that "sprays" sparks to the side every 6 generations.
** The tumbler, an oscillator that "tumbles" back and forth.
** The U-turner, a pattern that initially expands in one direction, turns around later, and then turns around to its initial direction before finally stabilizing.

!!References in fictional works:

[[AC:Literature]]
* ''Glory Season'' by Creator/DavidBrin features this game with the variation of being played as a contest, with each side getting part of the board to use, with the goal being eliminating the other side.
* In Creator/LyndonHardy's 1988 novel ''Literature/RiddleOfTheSevenRealms'', a character creates a dimension that operates under these rules, even calling it "the realm of the conways."
* ''Literature/TeaWithTheBlackDragon'' by Creator/RAMacAvoy has a metaphorically-significant scene in which the protagonist is introduced to the game.
* The ''Literature/WWWTrilogy'''s first book has Caitlin seeing cellular automata in the background of her "websight;" Dr. Kuroda brings up the Game of Life as an example of cellular automata while explaining it.

[[AC:Video Games]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{ADOM}}'', herbs grow this way. [[spoiler:[[GameBreaker With the right preparations, you can grow an near-infinite number of herbs in the "Big Room" of the Caverns of Chaos.]]]]
* One of the intro cinematics for ''VideoGame/{{Darwinia}}'' is a simulation of Life, with the added caveats that the grid is confined to a finite space and each Darwinian will die after a set number of years no matter what. As it's incredibly difficult not to get attached to the little guys while playing Darwinia, seeing the last "block" and "spaceship" formations settle, flicker, and die can be [[TearJerker very haunting]]. In-universe, it was given to the Darwinians to teach them mortality.
* The first trailer of ''VideoGame/GirlsFrontlineProjectNeuralCloud'' features heavy ''Game of Life'' imagery, reflecting the story's theme of artificial intelligence [[GrowBeyondTheirProgramming doing things beyond their initial parameters]]. Game of Life is also the name of Persicaria's passive skill.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' has a mushroom farming minigame that follows the same rules (although with more than one kind of mushroom), but the board is only 4x4, making it impossible to create any particularly interesting patterns.
* An element in ''VideoGame/RocksNDiamonds'', a ''VideoGame/BoulderDash'' clone.
* Entering the cheat "gol" in ''[[VideoGame/SimCity SimCity 4]]'' plays the Game of Life using ''[=SimCity=] 4'''s grid-based lot system.
* In ''VideoGame/SystemShock'', the walls, floors and ceilings of the virtual CyberSpace environment are square grids that light up in patterns that are seemingly arbitrary, until you realize they're following rules from the Game of Life.
* Revival "Game of Life" is a spellcard used by Eirin Yagokoro in ''Franchise/TouhouProject 8: Imperishable Night.'' WordOfGod [[http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Imperishable_Night/Spell_Cards/Stage_6A commentary]] makes reference to the bullet patterns being inspired by those found in Conway's Game of Life.
-->'''ZUN:''' You might not understand this if you didn't study at a technical college.
* ''VideoGame/ThePowderToy'' has a particle that follows Game of Life rules, along with a few other similar particles that follow slight modifications of the rules, such as HLIF (High Life) which replicates when 3 or 6 cells are alive next to a space, rather than just 3.

[[AC:Web Comics]]
* ''[[{{Webcomic/Mezzacotta}} Square Root of Minus Garfield]]'''s "[[http://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=448 Garfield, Infinite Canvas, and The Game of Life]]", in which a ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' comic about not having a life is used as the starting state for the Game of Life.
* ''WebComic/{{xkcd}}'': "[[https://xkcd.com/2293/ RIP John Conway]]" is an animation in which a cell pattern resembling a human stick figure develops into a single glider, which travels off the edge of the grid and disappears.

[[AC:Web Original]]
* The WebOriginal/OrionsArm Project has, among artifacts of unclear origin, a [[https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/46412766e34ef planet sized Life field]]. Apparently, it's been played long enough for life to evolve in the game.

A website which allows you to tinker around with Life patterns can be found [[http://www.ibiblio.org/lifepatterns/ here.]] Another program allowing you to play with Life and several other similar games can be found [[https://sourceforge.net/projects/golly here.]]

A website which allows you to tinker around with Life patterns can be found [[http://www.ibiblio.org/lifepatterns/ here.]]

** The caterpillar was the first macro-spaceship (i.e. large, self-supporting spaceship) to be constructed, and therefore other macro-spaceships, such as the silverfish and the waterbear, are also referred to as caterpillars despite being based on completely different mechanisms.

* MeaningfulName: The loafer is named as such both because it seems to push a loaf around, but also because at the time of discovery it was the slowest known orthogonal ship, hence, it loafs around.

** Robert Wainwright's classification system for Life objects. Still lifes were categorized as Class I, oscillators were Class II, spaceships were Class III, glider guns (and presumably anything else exhibiting infinite growth) were Class IV, and unstable objects such as polyominoes were either Class V or Class VI depending on whether or not their fates had been fully determined.

* MeaningfulName: The loafer is named as such both because it seems to push a loaf around, but also because at the time of discovery it was the slowest known orthogonal ship, hence, it loafes around.

* HealingFactor: The block can survive any single cell being removed, recovering in just one generation.

* HealingFactor:
** The block can survive any single cell being removed, recovering in just one generation.
** Eaters are a class of patterns capable of destroying certain objects while repairing the resulting damage. The most common of them is the eater 1 or fishook, which can destroy a variety of objects such as loaves, pre-beehives, gliders, blinkers, and can attack another eater to form a period 33 oscillator.
** Edge-repairing spaceships are a class of spaceships capable of repairing some kinds of damage, giving them capabilities to perturb other objects without being destroyed themselves.

* MeaningfulName: The loafer is named as such both because it seems to push a loaf around, but also because at the time of discovery it was the slowest known orthogonal ship, hence, it loafes around.