A cosy, hand-drawn Game of Life with an open-ended sandbox and a complete Garden Battle against AI. Deploy a red cell army within a budget, let both colours evolve, and compete to grow the most flowers in the central garden.
Cute Life gives Conway's Game of Life a hand-drawn personality, then turns its evolving cells into a red-versus-blue garden contest. Sandbox is open-ended, while Garden Battle supplies a clear objective: grow more flowers in the central garden than the opposing AI.
This is a self-hosted build of Tim Chyisell's MIT-licensed TypeScript and PixiJS project, not a video or a replacement simulation. The original English, Chinese and Japanese interfaces are included. The tested solo battle needs no account or original game server; Crystal Siege remains explicitly marked coming soon.
How to play Cute Life · 花园对战
- Open the mode menu and choose Garden Battle. Read the short rules, then place cells in the red deployment zone without exceeding the cell budget.
- Draw individual cells with a mouse or finger, place a library stamp, or use Random to fill a starting army. Clear lets you rethink the deployment before the battle begins.
- Press Ready. The AI prepares its army, both sides are revealed, and the cells evolve under the immigration rule: a newborn takes the majority colour of its parents.
- Cells passing through the central garden paint flowers. A side going extinct or reaching the generation limit ends the battle; the result shows the flower score and remaining cells.
- Use Edit army to try another arrangement. For a calmer experience, switch to Sandbox and experiment with stamps, single steps and the play control.
- Open Settings to choose English, 中文 or 日本語. Touch input works directly on the phone-sized board; on desktop, Sandbox also supports Space to play, wheel zoom and right-drag panning.
Controls: Click or tap to place cells in your red deployment zone, or choose a stamp or Random. Ready starts the AI battle. In Sandbox, Space toggles play, the wheel zooms and right-drag pans. More flowers in the central garden wins; extinction or the generation limit ends a battle.
Click Fullscreen above the game for the largest play area. If the game does not load, use Open in new tab to play it directly from our copy.
Why it's worth your time
The objective is not simply to keep the largest army alive. Flowers in the garden decide the main score, and the result also displays surviving cells.
Cells have expressive hand-drawn faces, and music is generated live with Web Audio rather than requiring an external soundtrack service.
The self-hosted build retains the project's MIT licence and the bundled fonts' licences. The source is pinned to commit 49e9cb73d1d206840189648ba62e2e317e17f8ba; the card image is an actual original-game battle screenshot.
Desktop and 390px native-emulated-touch checks exercise cell deployment, budget changes and battle results. Physical phones, sharing to X, replay recording and exhaustive offline behaviour are not claimed as tested.
How it was made and where it lives
Hosted on the author's own page. The author publishes as Tim Chyisell / Broccomato (@chyisell). Original: https://cute-life.iamqisir.workers.dev/. A self-hosted build of Tim Chyisell's MIT-licensed Cute Life, pinned to source commit 49e9cb73. English, Chinese and Japanese interfaces, fonts and introduction media are bundled locally. Sandbox and Garden Battle are included; Crystal Siege is marked coming soon. No account or original game server is required for the tested solo AI battle.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the goal?
- In Garden Battle, deploy your red army within the budget and grow more flowers in the central garden than the AI. Sandbox has no win condition.
- Is this the actual game?
- Yes. The player runs a self-hosted build of the original MIT-licensed project, with its rules and interfaces preserved, rather than a video or a clean-room remake.
- Does it support Chinese?
- Yes. Open Settings and choose 中文. English and Japanese are also bundled locally.
- Can I play on a phone?
- The board accepts touch input and was checked at 390px using native browser touch events. That is mobile browser emulation, not a physical-device certification.
- Is Crystal Siege included?
- The menu labels Crystal Siege as coming soon. The available modes covered here are Sandbox and Garden Battle.
- Do I need an account?
- No account or original game server is needed for the tested solo AI battle. Optional sharing and recording features were not part of acceptance.
- Who made Cute Life?
- Tim Chyisell, posting as Broccomato / @chyisell. The original browser game and GitHub source remain linked and the MIT notice is preserved.
- Is Cute Life · 花园对战 free to play?
- Free browser game. MIT-licensed source and bundled font licences are retained in this self-hosted build.
- Can I embed this game on my own website?
- Yes — copy the snippet below. The embedded player links back here, which is how we ask to be credited.
Embed Cute Life · 花园对战 on your site
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