Game of Life

A Javascript implementation of Conway's Game of Life.

v1.1.0

• Implemented with ES6 Javascript and HTML5 element.
• No dependencies, except for canvas support.
• It's possible to run multiple instances on the same page.
• Set an arbitrary state using the setState() method.

Installation

1. bower install --save-dev gameoflife, npm install --save-dev gameoflife-es6 or download /dist/gameoflife.min.js.
2. Add a canvas-element to your html with an ID of your choice.
3. Include the following Javascript in your html file, just before closing the body tag:

   <script src="src/gameoflife.js"></script>
   <script type="text/javascript">
       var myGameOfLife = new GameOfLife();
   </script>

4. Add some buttons to control the game. See our example page and check out the Usage section below.

If you are using ES6 you can also import the GameOfLife class from /src/gameoflife.js

Usage

Initialise a new instance using var myGame = new GameOfLife();. Override default parameters using var myCustomGame = new GameOfLife({canvas_id: "myCustomID", num_cols: 123}).

Click on cells in the grid to change their state. You can also set the state with the setState() method. Once your finished providing the initial state, call the start() method.

###setState(cells)

Provide an array of cells. Each cell is an object consisting of the column and row, eg. {col: 1, row: 2}. The state of each cell is changed but no further checks are made.

Example of adding a Blinker pattern to an empty state:

MyGame.setState([
    {col: 1, row: 0},
    {col: 1, row: 1},
    {col: 1, row: 2}
]);

start()

Starts iterating of states of the game. The game stops automatically if the game ends up in dead state, ie. no changes are made by further iterations.

step()

Compute the next state of the population. If the game is currently running it is stopped after this iteration.

stop()

Stop the game from iterating any further.

reset()

Reset to an empty state. If the game is currently running it is stopped.

Configuration

Below is a list of options with the default values.

• canvas_id (String, "gameoflife_canvas") ID that identifies the canvas element.
• num_cols (Int, 80) Number of columns in the grid.
• num_rows (Int, 40) Number of rows in the grid.
• cell_size (Int, 10) Size of each cell, in pixels.
• color_lines (String, "#cccccc") Color of the grid lines.
• color_cell_dead (String, "#ffffff") Color of dead cells.
• color_cell_alive (String, "#57A0DB") Color of live cells.
• update_interval (Int, 50) Update interval in milliseconds.

Examples

Take a look at the example page.

Licence

This software is freely distributable under the terms of the MIT license.