Cellula
A playground for cellular automata, starting with Conway’s Game of Life
Cellular automata in a nutshell
A cellular automaton is a grid of cells that are either alive or dead. Time moves in steps called generations, and in every generation each cell looks at its eight neighbours and follows the same simple rule to decide whether it survives, dies or is born.
Nobody steers the pattern once it runs: everything that happens follows from the starting cells and the rule. The best-known automaton is Conway’s Game of Life, whose three-line rule produces still lifes, oscillators, spaceships that glide across the map and even machines that compute.
The Game of Life in three rules
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Before → After Survival
A live cell with two or three live neighbours survives.
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Before → After Birth
A dead cell with exactly three live neighbours comes to life.
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Before → After Death
Every other cell dies or stays dead.
That is the whole rule. Cellula lets you change these numbers for every world you create.
What you can do with Cellula
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Draw and run
Click cells to life on an unlimited map, press Play and watch the pattern evolve.
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Step and slow down
Pause, step one generation forwards or back, set the speed and jump back to your starting pattern.
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Save into projects
Keep your worlds in your account, grouped into projects, and reopen them on any device.
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Share with a link
Send a saved world to anyone: the link plays it in a read-only editor, no account needed.
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Change the rules
Give each world its own rules: choose which neighbour counts bring cells to life and let them survive, and explore automata beyond the Game of Life.
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Make it yours
Pick the colours of cells and map, the starting zoom and speed, a light or dark theme and one of five languages.
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A pattern as your avatar
Generate a symmetric cell pattern in your colours as your avatar, or upload a photo.
Ready to bring some cells to life?
Free, in your browser, nothing to install. Sign up in a minute and your worlds are waiting on every device.
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