A simple app in Java, that lets you interact with Conway's Game of Life
There's two ways of running this app:
- The simplest way is executing ./out/artifacts/Game_of_life_jar/Game-Of-Life.jar
- Running the static void main in Game_of_life.java
In V2 I would like to have a user-friendly way of choosing dimensions and cell numbers. Also, I would like to implement a way of choosing between "random" mode and "pre-made" mode (like levels) and have many awasome levels to choose from.
In V1 im trying to increase the app's performance. Right now in the default configuration the app is checking many millions of objects, and updating and re-drawing 700.000 objects / second (even more depending on the speed).
I have changed the drawing method. Instead of drawing every alive cell and dead cell (700.000 cells in total), we only draw the alive ones in a black background (between 20.000 and 40.000 cells). (Yes, I know, how stupid am I?)
Also, instead of checking the neighbours of every single cell (700.000 * 9 = 6.300.000), we check only the neighbors of the alive cells and its neighbors (40.000 * 9 * 9 = 3.240.000). Theoretically, if we have more than 80.000 alive cells we will start losing performance, but this is much better if we are planning pre-made, more elegant scenarios (like I do).
Yes, I am sure there's many ways to continue increasing the performance, like not checking previously checked cells, avoiding updating every single cell each iteration (700.000 cells) or only re-drawing cells that change it's status, but right now there's no such a performance problem as previously.
Finally, I've added a very very simple developer mode:
- With 'CTR I' you are able to display developer info.
In V0 im trying to make the Game of life's basic logic and maybe a very simple Menu
- With 'CTR +' you are able to increase the speed.
- With 'CTR -' you are able to decrease and pause the speed.
- With space key you are able to pause/unpause.
- With escape key you are able to return to the main menu.