Conway's Game of Life (C++ with SFML & Eigen)

This is a personal project that visualizes Conway's Game of Life using C++, SFML for graphics, and Eigen for matrix manipulation.

This program is fully functional but the code is intentionally left unfinished and unpolished. In the next update, I will refactor and attempt to add an immediate mode GUI for more interactavity.

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Features

• Dynamic grid updates with custom patterns (glider, blinker, pulsar, etc.)
• SFML rendering with generation counter
• Uses matrix operations via Eigen
• Clean modular code structure

Note

This repository does not include:

• SFML (Simple and Fast Multimedia Library)
• Eigen (C++ template library for linear algebra)

You must download and install these separately:

Installing SFML

Visit: https://www.sfml-dev.org/download.php

Installing Eigen

Visit: https://eigen.tuxfamily.org/

Both are open-source and freely available.

Build Instructions

Example using g++:

g++ main.cpp -o game -lsfml-graphics -lsfml-window -lsfml-system
./game

How to Use the Code to Set Up a Simulation

This program simulates Conway's Game of Life using SFML for rendering and Eigen for grid data handling.

Setting Initial Patterns

You can manually add patterns to specific grid locations using:

addTestPattern(grid, "pattern_name", row, col);

Available patterns:

• "glider"
• "blinker"
• "block"
• "toad"
• "beacon"
• "lwss" (Lightweight Spaceship)
• "pulsar"
• "pentadecathlon"
• "diehard"
• "acorn"

Example:

addTestPattern(grid, "glider", 5, 5);
addTestPattern(grid, "block", 10, 10);

You can also enable random initialization:

randPopulate(grid, location);  // Called once at startup

Starting the Simulation

Once patterns are added (either manually or randomly), run the program. The main loop will:

Display the grid visually using SFML

Advance the simulation frame-by-frame

Show the current generation count on screen

Customize Simulation Speed Modify the delay between frames:

sf::sleep(sf::milliseconds(DELAY));  // e.g., DELAY = 100