# GOL-001: Standard Life

Conway's original B3/S23 rule is the collection's reference point: familiar enough to enter immediately, but inexhaustible once it starts moving.

[Open simulation](https://100gol.com/experiments/001) · [Directory](https://100gol.com/experiments)

## What to explore

The game should make ordinary Life immediately playable and provide a truthful
comparison control for every later experiment. A successful implementation is
not merely a B3/S23 loop: it must expose stable patterns, long-lived growth,
seeded fields, boundary behavior, direct editing, and the collection's shared
transport and navigation language without obscuring the field.

## Rules, update order and replay

The world is a square binary lattice stored as a `Uint8Array`. Every Step reads
one frozen board, counts the eight-cell Moore neighborhood, and commits one
synchronous generation. A dead cell is born at three neighbors; a living cell
survives at two or three. Boundaries are either finite or toroidal. There is no
hidden causal state and evolution makes no random calls. Exact replay requires
the selected initial condition or the random seed and density, field size,
boundary mode, and current occupancy. Reset reconstructs the selected start and
returns the generation counter to zero.

## Reading the simulation

The renderer uses the collection's dead/alive palette and a focusable Canvas 2D
stage. Written context states the B3/S23 rule, field dimensions, topology,
keyboard behavior, generation, and population so color is not the only
explanation. Direct pointer and keyboard editing is appropriate because no
hidden state needs to be reconciled. A selected-cell causal inspector is not
needed for this transparent reference rule.

## Reproduce a starting configuration

[Download example JSON](https://100gol.com/api/experiments/001/configuration). Import it using Share & reproduce in the simulation controls. It starts paused at Step zero. Files contain rules and initial conditions, not evolved boards or manual edits. See [format, limitations and automated access](https://100gol.com/agents).