A very simple C++ implementation of John Conway's Game of Life.
The Game of Life is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is the best-known example of a cellular automaton.
Conway's game of life is described here: A cell C is represented by a 1 when alive or 0 when dead, in an m-by-m square array of cells. We calculate N - the sum of live cells in C's eight-location neighbourhood, then cell C is alive or dead in the next generation based on the following table: C N new C 1 0,1 -> 0 # Lonely 1 4,5,6,7,8 -> 0 # Overcrowded 1 2,3 -> 1 # Lives 0 3 -> 1 # It takes three to give birth! 0 0,1,2,4,5,6,7,8 -> 0 # Barren Assume cells beyond the boundary are always dead. The "game" is actually a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, needing no input from human players. One interacts with the Game of Life by creating an initial configuration and observing how it evolves.