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Golly is an open source, cross-platform Game of Life simulator currently under development by Andrew Trevorrow and Tomas Rokicki. Our goal is to write a world-class Life simulator, solicit ideas and help from the planet's best Life hackers, and share some of our excitement.

NEWS: Version 1.3 has been released.

Golly's key features:

  • Unbounded universe (limited only by memory).
  • Fast, memory-efficient conventional algorithm.
  • Super fast hashlife algorithm for highly regular patterns.
  • Responsive even while generating or garbage collecting.
  • Reads RLE, Life 1.05/1.06, dblife, and macrocell formats.
  • Can also read common graphic formats: BMP, PNG, GIF, TIFF.
  • Includes a state-of-the-art pattern collection.
  • Supports other Life-like rules and Wolfram's 1D rules.
  • Can paste in patterns from the clipboard.
  • Unlimited undo/redo.
  • User-configurable keyboard shortcuts.
  • Auto fit option keeps patterns sized to the window.
  • Full screen option (no menu/status/tool/scroll bars).
  • Supports multiple layers, including cloned layers.
  • HTML-based help with an integrated Life Lexicon.
  • Scriptable via Perl or Python.
  • Runs on Windows (2K+), Mac OS X (10.3.9+) and Linux (GTK+/X11).

Download a source or binary distribution.
Monitor our progress at SourceForge.
View the online help.

Click to enlarge these screen shots:


Prefs dialog [Win XP]

Prefs dialog [Mac]

Prefs dialog [Linux GTK+]

 


Integrated lexicon [Win XP]

Stacked layers [Mac]

Meta galaxy [Linux GTK+]

 


Running a script [Win XP]

Editing cloned layer [Mac]

Metacatacryst [Linux GTK+]