Game of Life

Game of Life is a cellular-automaton simulation by deadblit for TIC-80, the fantasy console. Rather than presenting stages, enemies, or a score to chase, it turns the screen into a compact field for observing Conway's Game of Life as successive generations emerge from a random starting pattern.

The simulation uses a 60-by-34-cell grid. Each cell is evaluated against Conway's familiar Life rules as the board advances, so crowded areas can disappear, sparse clusters can die out, and new cells can be born where local neighbourhoods meet the required conditions. The result is an evolving display whose behavior comes from the initial arrangement and the rules rather than direct player movement.

The cartridge begins with a randomized grid, making each run an opportunity to watch a different population develop. Some formations can settle or repeat while others continue to shift across the visible playfield, giving the program the character of an interactive simulation rather than a conventional competitive game.

TIC-80 controls adjust how the simulation is viewed and paced. The A button, or Z on a keyboard, switches between the standard cell display and a heat-map view. The B button, or X, changes the update rate from 0.5 to 10 generations per second, while X on the console, or A on a keyboard, pauses or resumes the process. Y, or S, returns to the main menu.

Created as deadblit's first attempt at both TIC-80 and Lua, Game of Life is a small fantasy-console project focused on visualizing a classic zero-player system. Its compact presentation and adjustable speed make it suited to watching how simple local rules produce changing patterns over time.