# Conway Game of Life Simulator with Editable Rules
This Conway Game of Life rule lab lets you run the classic cellular automaton and then deliberately break, bend, and compare its rules. The board supports direct drawing, pattern placement, random seeds, step-by-step inspection, variable tempo, and live measurements for population, density, births, deaths, and stability. It is built for experimentation: you can start with a known pattern, change the rule notation, and immediately see whether the colony stabilizes, explodes, replicates, or vanishes.# How B/S Rules Change the Game
Life-like cellular automata are often written in B/S notation. The B side defines how many live neighbors a dead cell needs to be born; the S side defines how many neighbors a live cell needs to survive. Conway's original rule, B3/S23, is famous because it sits in a narrow region between extinction and uncontrolled growth. Small changes can create dramatically different behavior, from HighLife replicators to Seeds-style branching fronts.| Rule | Behavior to watch for | Good experiment |
|---|---|---|
| B3/S23 | Classic gliders, blinkers, still lifes, and engineered guns. | Place the Gosper gun and track population rhythm over several dozen generations. |
| B36/S23 | HighLife supports Conway structures plus self-replicating patterns. | Compare the same random seed against Conway Classic and look for faster expansion. |
| B2/S | Cells never survive; the field becomes a wave of births and immediate deaths. | Start with a small seed and watch the frontier race outward. |
| B3678/S34678 | Day & Night supports dense inverse structures and large stable regions. | Randomize a high-density board and observe how voids behave like living islands. |