R-802 / The-Game-of-Life

Java implementation of Conway's Game of Life 🌱. Users can interact with the game, toggle cell states, adjust settings, and observe the evolution of the cellular automaton through visual representations.

The Game of Life

This repository contains a Java implementation of Conway's Game of Life, a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway. The game is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further input from humans.

Getting Started

To get started, clone the repository to your local machine.

git clone https://github.com/R-802/The-Game-of-Life.git

Navigate to the main directory within the repository:

cd The-Game-of-Life/main

Here you'll find the primary Java class TheGame.java which contains the main method to run the program.

How to Run

Ensure you have a Java environment set up on your machine, then compile and run TheGame.java.

Features

• Canvas: A white or black canvas where the cells live. Cells can be toggled on and off by clicking on them.
• Run & Pause Buttons: Start and pause the game simulation.
• Cell Color Button: Change the color of the active cells.
• Grid Size Slider: Adjust the size of the grid.
• Simulation Speed Slider: Adjust the speed of the simulation.
• Pre-defined Seeds: Buttons to create known starting configurations like Gliders, Lightweight Spaceship, etc.
• Grid Visibility Button: Toggle the visibility of the grid.
• Clear Cells Button: Clears all cells on the board.
• Quit Button: Exit the program.

Game Controls

• Mouse Clicks: Toggle the state of cells by clicking on the canvas.
• Run Button: Starts the simulation.
• Pause Button: Pauses the simulation.

Code Structure

The TheGame class is the entry point of the program and handles the GUI setup and user interactions. It relies on other classes such as TheLife for simulation steps and Seeds for predefined cell configurations.

The drawGame method is responsible for rendering the cells and grid on the canvas. The runGame method is the core loop of the simulation, continuously updating the state of the cells and redrawing the canvas.

Dependencies

• The program relies on the ecs100 library for the UI components.
• Utility classes TheLife and Seeds for simulation logic and predefined cell configurations respectively.