  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.
