connorsmorrison / game-of-life

Game of Life created in p5.js

Game of Life

The Game of Life cellular automata (automaton??) written in Javascript using p5.js in around 150 lines of code.

Rules

The Game of Life has the following rules

• If the current cell is alive and has 2 or 3 neighbors, the cell stays alive in the next generation
• If the current cell is alive and has less than two neighbors, the cell dies in the next generation
• If the current cell is alive and has more than 3 neighbors, the cell dies in the next generation
• If the cell is dead and has exactly 3 neighbors, the cell becomes alive in the next generation

These rules simulate underpopulation, overpopulation, and reproduction.

Cellular Automaton

The Game of Life is a cellular automaton. Cellular automaton is laid out on a grid of cells (I used a 2D array) each with a finite number of states, such as on or off. Different cellular automata have different rules. Some more examples of cellular automata are Langton's Ant and Rule 110.

My Visualization

My visualization uses a 2D array of either 1s or 0s. If it is a 1, it is black, or alive. It can be kind of slow because it's checking every single cell every frame two times. Because of this, I usually set the frame rate to something like 24 or even 16.