Conway's game of life

I wanted to play around a little bit with GOL in golang and here's the result. It's a simple game using ebitengine.

Features

• flexible parameters as grid and cell size
• colors can be inverted
• game grid lines can be enabled or disabled
• game speed can be adjusted on startup and in-game
• you can zoom in and out of the canvas and move it around
• game can be paused any time
• it can be run step-wise
• game state can be saved any time and loaded later on startup
• various Life rules can be used, the rule format B[0-9]+/S[0-9]+ is fully supported
• game patterns can be loaded using RLE files, see https://catagolue.hatsya.com/home
• you can paint your own patterns in the game
• the game can also be started with an empty grid, which is easier to paint patterns

Build and install

Just execute: go build . and use the resulting executable.

You'll need the golang toolchain.

Usage

The game has a couple of commandline options:

Usage of ./gameoflife:
  -c, --cellsize int               cell size in pixels (default 8)
  -d, --debug                      show debug info
  -D, --density int                density of random cells (default 10)
  -e, --empty                      start with an empty screen
  -H, --height int                 grid height in cells (default 40)
  -i, --invert                     invert colors (dead cell: black)
  -l, --load-state-file string     game state file
  -n, --nogrid                     do not draw grid lines
  -p, --paused                     do not start simulation (use space to start)
  -f, --rle-file string            RLE pattern file
  -r, --rule string                game rule (default "B3/S23")
  -s, --show-evolution             show evolution tracks
  -t, --ticks-per-generation int   game speed: the higher the slower (default: 10) (default 10)
  -v, --version                    show version
  -W, --width int                  grid width in cells (default 40)

While it runs, there are a couple of commands you can use:

• left mouse click: set a cell to alife (also pauses the game)
• right mouse click: set a cell to dead
• space: pause or resume the game
• while game is paused: press n to forward one step
• page up: speed up
• page down: slow down
• Mouse wheel: zoom in or out
• move mouse while middle mouse button pressed: move canvas
• escape: reset to 1:1 zoom
• s: save game state to file (can be loaded with -l)
• q: quit

Report bugs

Please open an issue. Thanks!

License

This work is licensed under the terms of the General Public Licens version 3.

Author

Copyleft (c) 2024 Thomas von Dein