Elemental Box vs Life
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Elemental Box
Engage in a sandbox game focused on realistic physical simulations. Experiment with various shapes and materials to observe their unique interactions and transformations. This app offers a creative space for exploration and discovery through physics.
- Physical simulation
- Material interaction
- Shape manipulation
- Sandbox gameplay
- Real-time physics
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Physical simulation game that enjoys real physical operation of each shape and change in each material.
Life
Explore Conway's Game of Life, a cellular automaton where simple patterns evolve into complex structures or disappear. Discover over 90 included patterns, analyze their evolution with built-in statistics, and rewind to observe changes. Export your creations as images or RLE files.
- Conway's Game of Life simulation
- Catalog of 90+ patterns
- Cycle detection and statistics
- Rewind feature for evolution
- Image and RLE export
- Pattern exploration and combination
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Explore the iconic 'Life' cellular automaton devised by mathematician John Conway. Study how trivial patterns evolve into complexity - or vanish after a couple of generations. Choose from eight cell shapes and five color schemes, with an optional grid and afterglow trails. A catalog containing more than 100 popular patterns, grouped by family, is included to explore and combine at your leisure. A built-in cycle detection and other statistics provide insight into the current cellular automaton. The rewind feature enables you to go back in time and reverse the last steps of the evolution. Save the worlds you want to revisit and load them again later. Export images or RLE representations to share online or import to other apps.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Life at none against Elemental Box's shown. Life also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 72%) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 4 months). Elemental Box's advantage is ratings volume (65 vs 3) and rating (4.2 vs 4.0). On price and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Elemental Box holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Elemental Box has 65 ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 72% of Elemental Box's written reviews are positive against 100% of Life's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Elemental Box ships an update every 4 months, Life every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Elemental Box | Life |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.2 (65 ratings) — better | 4.0 (3 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 72.1% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 65 — better | 3 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | DAN-BALL | Jan P. Barnholt |
Customer experience
Elemental Box
Life
In-app purchases
Elemental Box
No in-app purchases
Life
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Elemental Box free?
Is Life free?
Which has better reviews, Elemental Box or Life?
Do Elemental Box or Life have ads?
Which is updated more often, Elemental Box or Life?
Other comparisons
