Let's talk about what Conway's Game of Life is first. The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional grid of cells, each of which is in one of two possible states: live or dead.
The state of each cell is determined by its surrounding 8 neighbors, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent:
- Any dead cell will come alive if it has exactly 3 live neighbors.
- Any live cell will stay alive if it has either 2 or 3 live neighbors.
- Any live cell will become dead if it has neither 2 or 3 live neighbors.
It's a cellular automaton and also what's known as a 0-player game because its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further input.
Life for Two turns Conway's Game of Life from a 0-player game into a 2-player game. Now there are RED cells and BLUE cells to distinguish between the two players.
- Each dead cell that comes alive will be assigned its color based on which player had the majority of its live neighbours.
- Each live cell is affected only by neighbours of the same color.
After running run.bat you'll be presented with a window where you can specify settings for the game.
- Field Width and Field Height specify the dimensions of the grid.
- Edge Wrapping toggles whether or not the field should wrap around its edges.
- Starting Cells lets you select how many cells both of the players start the game with.
After clicking "CONTINUE", both players will be able to choose their starting cells in an alternating fashion, starting with: RED.
When the last cell is selected a button saying: "PLAY" will pop up.
It's best to start the game with one of the stable patterns in Game of Life, also known as still lifes, oscillators or spacechips:
After clicking the "PLAY" button, the grid will start to update in real time. Both players will be able to use power ups, which change the rules of the game for the player for a set number of iterations.
Here are the three implemented power ups:
| Survive Rules | Come Alive Rules | Duration | Cooldown | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amoeba | 1, 3, 5, 8 | 3, 5, 7 | 3 | 15 |
| Gnarl | 1 | 1 | 2 | 20 |
| Explode | 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 | 3, 7 | 3 | 30 |
Cooldowns on powerups as progress bars are going to be shown bellow the grid with their respective key-binds.
When one of the players has no more live cells, the other player wins.
You can also press Esc to end the game, evaluate the position and choose the winner based on the current number of RED and BLUE cells in the field.