Life: The Game

Jan P. Barnholt Games iPad

Life: The Game is a free Games app for iPad by Jan P. Barnholt. Rated 4.0/5 from 3 ratings. Requires iOS 15.6. Updated September 7, 2026.

Rating: 4.0; 3 ratings
Price: Free; on the App Store
Size: 2 MB; Age 4+
Updated: Sep 7; 2026 · v1.7

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Screenshots

About Life: The Game

Explore the iconic 'Life' cellular automaton devised by mathematician John Conway. Study how trivial patterns evolve into complexity - or vanish after a couple of generations. Choose from eight cell shapes and five color schemes, with an optional grid and afterglow trails. A catalog containing more than 100 popular patterns, grouped by family, is included to explore and combine at your leisure. A built-in cycle detection and other statistics provide insight into the current cellular automaton. The rewind feature enables you to go back in time and reverse the last steps of the evolution. Save the worlds you want to revisit and load them again later. Export images or RLE representations to share online or import to other apps.

What’s new

Version 1.7 · Updated September 7, 2026

New in 1.7: 12 new patterns • A new Methuselah family: Acorn, Diehard, Pi-heptomino, R-pentomino, Rabbits and Thunderbird • Four more still lifes: Barge, Loaf, Long Boat and Ship • The Enterprise spaceship and the Medusa gun Improved pattern picker • Open one family at a time to find a pattern faster Manage your saved worlds • Swipe a saved world in the file browser to delete it A Tip Jar • If you enjoy Life: The Game you can now leave a tip from the action bar. Nothing is unlocked, and there are still no ads and no subscription. Also includes various fixes and improvements.

App privacy

The developer, Jan P. Barnholt, reported these privacy practices to Apple.

Data Not Linked to You

The following data, which may be collected but is not linked to your identity, may be used for the following purposes:

Usage Data: Product Interaction
Diagnostics: Crash Data

Used for: Analytics, App Functionality

App details

Life: The Game is a free Games app for iPad, developed by Jan P. Barnholt. It is rated 4.0 out of 5 from 3 ratings on the App Store, requires iOS 15.6 or later and is 2 MB to download. It was first released on May 20, 2022 and last updated on September 7, 2026.

Category: Games
Rating: 4.0 / 5 (3 ratings)
Price: Free
Version: 1.7
Size: 2 MB
Requires: iOS 15.6 or later
Compatibility: iPad
Languages: English
Age rating: 4+
Released: May 20, 2022
Last updated: September 7, 2026
Developer: Jan P. Barnholt

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Alternatives to Life: The Game

Looking for apps like Life: The Game? Here are 6 similar apps on the App Store. The highest rated is Conway's Game of Life 3D (5.0/5), and 4 of the 6 are free to download.

Life: The Game vs. alternatives
App	Rating	Price	Last updated	Compare
Life: The Game	4.0 / 5 (3 ratings)	Free	September 7, 2026
Golly	4.8 / 5 (47)	Free	Sep 26, 2026	Compare
NEON Game of Life	4.4 / 5 (7)	Free	Jul 10, 2026	Compare
Conway's Game of Life 3D	5.0 / 5 (10)	2.99 USD	Sep 24, 2026	Compare
Game of Life Cellular Automata	4.4 / 5 (80)	Free	Aug 30, 2026	Compare
Life-Game	–	Free	Aug 4, 2026	Compare
Evolution - Learning Creatures	4.4 / 5 (550)	1.99 USD	Oct 6, 2025	Compare

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