Once you understand how the game works you can start to play the game for the first time using the board at the bottom of this page.

Before you start playing make sure you read this warning: on the previous page we said that the game's "world" was represented by an infinite square grid. Clearly it would be impossible to reproduce this world on a computer screen so we have designed a "reduced world" which is 60 columns wide and 38 rows long. Changing this aspect of the game has obvious consequences as the behaviour of a certain configuration pattern would change depending on if it were located in the middle of the world or on its edge. In fact, some of the outcomes given in this unit might not actually be possible in our "mini-world".

It is advisable to follow these rules carefully:

1. Make sure the Select control is set at 0.
2. Use the Column and Row controls to move the pointer (little blue square) to wherever you would like to place a person.
3. Change the Select control to 1.
4. If you want to give the person some neighbours move the pointer with the Select control still set at 1. If you want to place a person somewhere else then repeat steps 1-3.
5. If you want to delete a person then position the pointer on that person and set the Select control to 0.
6. Once the first population distribution has been selected make sure the Select control is set at 0 and move the pointer as far away as possible so that it doesn't get in the way. Then, click on the top arrow next to the Generation control several times and watch what happens carefully. Once this process starts the pointer will disappear. Don't click on the bottom arrow next to the Generation control as the true outcome won't be reflected. The program can't go backwards.
7. If you want the game to go back to the start automatically then click on the Animate button. In this case you can stop the process whenever you want and then follow on by using the controls (just as with the manual controls we only advise you to use the step by step advance control and not to use the reverse controls nor to jump to the end as this can result in an incorrect number of generations being indicated). Once the process has begun you can stop it with the pause button and then continue manually. However, this doesn't indicate the correct number of generations, which is why it is perhaps better to use the animate button.
8. Click on the Init button to restart the process with a new configuration.