We study life over the course of video game history as represented by their mechanics. While there have been some variations depending on genre or "character type", we find that most games converge to a similar representation. We also examine the development of Conway's Game of Life (one of the first zero player games) and related automata that have developed over the years. With this history in mind, we investigate the viability of one popular form of automata, namely Neural Cellular Automata, as a way to more fully express life within video game settings and innovate new game mechanics or gameplay loops.

翻译：我们在电子游戏历史脉络中研究"生命"这一概念的机制表现。尽管不同游戏类型或"角色设定"存在差异，但我们发现多数游戏最终汇聚至相似的表达模式。我们还考察了康威生命游戏（首款零玩家游戏之一）的发展历程，以及多年来衍生出的相关自动机模型。基于这一历史背景，我们探究了神经细胞自动机（Neural Cellular Automata）这一主流自动机形式的可行性——如何以更丰富的维度在电子游戏场景中诠释生命本质，并以此驱动新型游戏机制或玩法循环的创新。