Conway's Game of Life

Introduction 

The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further input. One interacts with the Game of Life by creating an initial configuration and observing how it evolves.

Rules

The universe of the Game of Life is a two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is live or dead (or populated and unpopulated, respectively). Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent. All cells follow 4 basic rules listed below.

1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if by underpopulation.
2. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
3. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overpopulation.
4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

Simulator

All the action happens here! Life in simulator is spawned randomly if there were no configurations loaded in the editor before. You can adjust the initial spawn rate of cells and switch between classic (good old game of life) and conflict (2 separate species try to survive in the cruel world) modes. Spawn rate parameter doesn't affect preloaded configurations.

Editor

Not into randomly generated stuff? Unleash your creativity in the editor! Here you can create, save and load the initial configuration of live cells. Spawn cells with the left mouse button (LMB) and remove them with the right mouse button (RMB). You can spawn 2 separate cell species to use in the conflict simulation mode. They will act as a single united species in the classic mode. Some neat configurations are included as well. You can find them in the "saved" folder inside the game's directory.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Common

• H - hide/show UI
• Del - clear current configuration stored in editor
• Alt+Enter or F11 - toggle fullscreen

Simulator

• E - open editor
• R - restart simulator
• ←/→ - adjust initial spawn rate
• ↑/↓ - switch between simulation modes

Editor

• Backspace - open simulator
• ↑/↓ or 1/2 - switch between cell species (used in conflict mode)
• Ctrl+S - save current configuration
• Ctrl+O - load configuration

Version History

1.0 - 19/12/22