game-of-life

Simple Python implementation of Conway's Game of Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_Of_Life

As the title explains, I took upon the challenge of creating a working version of Conway's Game of Life. I still have a lot of work to do, but it's the first thing I thought was actually interesting enough to share on Github. I may expand the README as I continue work on it, but for now I don't think there's much to say.

So, what is the Game of Life? Basically, it's a "zero-player" game -- in other words, the game proceeds without any input needed from an outside source. The game is based on a grid full of cells which, on any given turn or "tick" become either "alive" or "dead" based on a small set of simple rules. For a given tick "n", the rules are:

1. Any live cell with two or three live neighboring cells remains alive on turn n+1. A neighboring cell is any cell directly adjacent to a given cell, whether horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
2. A live cell with fewer than two or more than three live neighbors will be dead on turn n+1.
3. A dead cell with exactly three live neighbors will be live on turn n+1.

A few basic points:

1. To run: Simply enter 'python gol.py' from the CLI with grid1.txt in the same directory. This is a demo of the game with a preset grid, set to a 1/10 second delay. You can also run the game with a different grid file and time delay if desired, like this: 'python gol.py <filename(no quotes or braces)> <timedelay in secs>'
2. The game (and the program) automatically ends when the board becomes empty, or when the only cells on the grid form still-lifes (see Wikipedia article for definition). The game should also stop when all the cells on the grid form oscillators (or oscillators and still-lifes), that will be implemented soon.