Play Conways Game of Life Online

Game Overview

Conway’s Game of Life is one of those weird little MS-DOS gems that shouldn’t be as fascinating as it is. You start by placing a few pixel "cells" on the grid, hit enter, and suddenly they’re alive—growing, dying, or morphing into these hypnotic patterns based on just three simple rules. I remember my first time booting it up, expecting something dull, and then losing an hour watching chaotic blobs turn into gliders that sailed across the screen like tiny spaceships.

There’s something almost meditative about it. No points, no objectives—just pure emergence. Sometimes your carefully placed cells vanish instantly; other times they spiral into these sprawling, pulsating structures that feel weirdly organic. The "glider gun" is still my favorite—it just keeps firing these little diagonal shapes forever, like a self-sustaining pixel factory.

It’s not really a game, more like a digital terrarium you poke at. And after 50 years, it still surprises me.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".