List of Life-like cellular automata

The following is a list of notable Life-like cellular automata. A more up-to-date and complete list can be found on Catagolue.

Outer-totalistic rules

Rulestring	Name	Description
B0123478/S01234678	AntiLife
B012345678/S34678	InverseLife
B1/S012345678	H-trees
B1/S1	Gnarl	A simple exploding rule that forms complex patterns from even a single live cell.
B1357/S02468	Fredkin	A rule in which, like Replicator, every pattern is a replicator. Also known as "Replicator 2".
B1357/S1357	Replicator	A rule in which every pattern is a replicator.
B2/S	Seeds	An exploding rule in which every cell dies in every generation. It has many simple orthogonal spaceships, though it is in general difficult to create patterns that don't explode.
B2/S0	Live Free or Die	An exploding rule in which only cells with no neighbors survive. It has many spaceships, puffers, and oscillators, some of infinitely extensible size and period.
B234/S	Serviettes	An exploding rule in which every cell dies every generation (like seeds). This rule is of interest because of the fabric-like beauty of the patterns that it produces. Also known as "Persian Rug".
B25678/S5678	Iceballs	Small masses of solid living cells flicker in and out of existence. Some reach a critical mass and begin to slowly grow. Also known as "Ice nine".
B3/S012345678	Life without death	An expanding rule that produces complex flakes. It also has important ladder patterns. Also known as "Flakes" or "Inkspot".
B3/S023	DotLife	An exploding rule closely related to Conway's Life. The B-heptomino is a common infinite growth pattern in this rule, though it can be stabilized into a spaceship.
B3/S12	Flock	Patterns tend to quickly settle into dominos, duoplets and period 2 oscillators. There is a common period 14 shuttle oscillator involving the pre-beehive.
B3/S1234	Mazectric	An expanding rule that crystalizes to form maze-like designs that tend to be straighter (ie. have longer "halls") than the standard maze rule.
B3/S12345	Maze	An expanding rule that crystalizes to form maze-like designs.
B3/S1237	SnowLife
B3/S124	Corrosion of Conformity
B3/S13	LowLife
B3/S2		This rule has 6 small still lives, the tub, the hive, the aircraft carrier, the loaf, and the mango, and the pond. However, there are no still lives with more than 8 and less than 20 cells. There are also a few common oscillators, including the blinker and the toad, and lots of rare ones. No still lives with more than 8 cells have appeared in B3/S2/C1.
B3/S23	Conway's Life	A chaotic rule that is by far the most well-known and well-studied. It exhibits highly complex behavior.
B3/S238	EightLife	Also known as "Pulsar Life".
B3/S45678	Coral	An exploding rule in which patterns grow slowly and form coral-like textures.
B34/S34	3-4 Life	An exploding rule that was initially thought to be a stable alternative to Conway's Life, until computer simulation found that most patterns tend to explode. It has many small oscillators and simple period 3 orthogonal and diagonal spaceships.
B34/S456	Bacteria
B345/S2	Blinkers
B345/S4567	Assimilation	A very stable rule that forms permanent diamond-shaped patterns with partially filled interiors. Like in 2×2, patterns made of blocks will permanently remain made of blocks.
B345/S5	Long Life	A stable rule that gets its name from the fact that it has many simple extremely high period oscillators.
B3457/S4568	Gems	An exploding rule with many smaller high-period oscillators and a c/5648 spaceship.
B34578/S456	Gems Minor	An exploding rule with many smaller high-period oscillators and a c/2068 spaceship.
B35/S234578	Land Rush
B3567/S15678	Bugs
B35678/S4678	Holstein
B35678/S5678	Diamoeba	A chaotic pattern that forms large diamonds with chaotically oscillating boundaries. Known to have quadratically-growing patterns. Like in 2×2, patterns made of blocks will permanently remain made of blocks.
B357/S1358	Amoeba	A chaotic rule that is well balanced between life and death; it forms patterns with chaotic interiors and wildly moving boundaries.
B357/S238	Pseudo Life	A chaotic rule with evolution that resembles Conway's Life, but few patterns from Life work in this rule because the glider is unstable.
B36/S125	2×2	A chaotic rule with many simple still lifes, oscillators and spaceships. Its name comes from the fact that it sends patterns made up of 2×2 blocks to patterns made up of 2×2 blocks.
B36/S235	Blinker Life	An exploding rule where the T-tetromino is a blinker puffer, appropriate because it evolves into traffic light in Life, also made of blinkers.
B36/S23	HighLife	A chaotic rule very similar to Conway's Life that is of interest because it has a simple replicator.
B367/S125678	Slow Blob
B3678/S235678	Stains	A stable rule in which most patterns tend to "fill in" bounded regions. Most nearby rules (such as coagulations) tend to explode.
B3678/S34678	Day & Night	A stable rule that is symmetric under on-off reversal. Many patterns exhibiting highly complex behavior have been found for it.
B368/S238	LowDeath	HighLife's replicator works in this rule, albeit with a different evolution sequence due to the result of B38/S23's pedestrian effect.
B368/S245	Move	A rule in which random patterns tend to stabilize extremely quickly. Has a very common slow-moving spaceship and slow-moving puffer. Also known as "Morley".
B37/S1234	Mazectric with Mice
B37/S12345	Maze with Mice
B37/S23	DryLife	An exploding rule closely related to Conway's Life, named after the fact that the standard spaceships bigger than the glider do not function in the rule. Has a small puffer based on the R-pentomino, which resembles the switch engine in the possibility of combining several to form a spaceship.
B378/S012345678	Plow World
B378/S235678	Coagulations	An exploding rule in which patterns tend to expand forever, producing a thick "goo" as it does so. Suprisingly, Coagulations actually has one less birth condition than Stains.
B38/S23	Pedestrian Life	Has a number of natural elementary (5,2)c/190 oblique spaceships.
B38/S238	HoneyLife
B45/S12345	Electrified Maze
B45678/S2345	Walled cities	A stable rule that forms centers of pseudo-random activity separated by walls.
B4678/S35678	Vote 4/5	A modification of the standard Gérard Vichniac voting rule, also known as "Anneal", used as a model for majority voting.
B5678/S45678	Vote	Standard Gérard Vichniac voting rule, also known as "Majority", used as a model for majority voting.

Non-totalistic rules

Also see Non-totalistic Life-like cellular automaton and Hensel notation for more information.

Rulestring	Name	Description
B3/S2-i34q	tlife	T-tetromino is a common c/5 orthogonal spaceship in this rule, giving it its name. Possibly the best-explored 2-dimensional 2-state non-totalistic cellular automaton.
B3-n/S23	DLife
B34ek5ak/S2-c34z	GlideLife	Has many small c/4 diagonal spaceships.
B36/S2-i34q	tHighLife	Has an orthogonal replicator sharing some traits with HighLife's diagonal replicator. A cross between tlife and HighLife.
B367/S2-i34q	SilverLife	A rule extremely rich in exotic speeds, including a p91 flamingoship.
B37/S2-i34q	tDryLife	Not explosive, unlike DryLife. Has a small 2c/23 orthogonal, a high-period diagonal pond puffer, and a ship camelpuffer, both of which have been stabilised. A cross between tlife and DryLife.
B2i34c/S2-i3	Salad	Also has multiple small spaceships.
B3/S2-in34iw	hlife3	R-pentomino is a common c/14 diagonal spaceship in this rule.
B2ae4i/S1e2in	cb2	An unusual example of a non-exploding (i.e. eventually regularizes) rule with the transition B2a.
B3/S234iw	alife	There are common c/42 diagonal and 2c/7 diagonal spaceships.
B2c3ae4ai56c/S2-kn3-enq4		Allows for arbitrary spaceships speeds of c/n where n is an even number and greater than 3.
B2c3aj4nrt5i6c78/S1c23enr4aet5-iq67		Allows for arbitrary spaceships speeds of c/n where n is an odd number and greater than 4.