golsky - Conway's game of life written in GO

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

John Conway himself: https://youtu.be/R9Plq-D1gEk?si=yYxs77e9yXxeSNbL

Based on: https://youtu.be/FWSR_7kZuYg?si=ix1dmo76D8AmF25F

Screenshots

Youtube video game preview

Features

• flexible parameters as grid and cell size
• colors can be inverted
• evolution traces can be shown, with age the cells color fades and old life cells will be drawn in red
• 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
• wrap around grid mode can be enabled
• you can also save rectangles of the grid to RLE files

Install

In the github releases page you can find ready to use binaries for your OS. Just download the one you need and use it.

Build from source

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 ./golsky:
  -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 traces
  -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:

• 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 left mouse button pressed: move canvas
• i: enter "insert" (draw) mode: use left mouse to toggle cells alife state. Leave with insert mode "space". While in insert mode, use middle mouse button to drag the grid.
• r: reset to 1:1 zoom
• escape: open menu
• s: save game state to file (can be loaded with -l)
• c: enter copy mode. Mark a rectangle with the mouse, when you release the mous button it is being saved to an RLE file
• d: toggle debug output
• 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