This is one of several possible projects for CSCI 1300. The following link tells how the projects are used:
Please note that these projects indicate precisely what your program should accomplish, without a precise indication of how the program works. Part of your assignment is designing the techniques of how the program works.
The mathematician, John Horton Conway, invented the "Game of Life." Though not a "game" in any traditional sense, it provides interesting behavior that is specified with only a few rules. The program asks for an initial configuration to be specified. The program follows the rules of Life (listed below) to show the continuing behavior of the configuration.
LIFE is an organism that lives in a discrete, two-dimensional world. While the world is acutally unlimited, in this case it is better to limit it to a manageable size. This world is an array with each cell capable of holding one LIFE cell. Generations mark the passing of time. Each generation brings births and deaths to the LIFE community.
The births and deaths follow this set of rules:
1. Each cell is defined to have eight neighbor cells. The neighbors of a cell are the cell directly above, below, to the right, to the left, diagonally a bove to the right and left, and diagonally below, to the right and left. 2. If an occupied cell has 0 or 1 neighbors, it dies of loneliness. If an occ upied cell has more than 3 neighbors, it dies of overcrowding. 3. If an empty cell has exactly three occupied neighbor cells, there is a birth