Conway's Game of Life

The Game of Life is a cellular automaton created by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. We're going to create it in Godot 3.0. The Game of Life is a good starting point for learning about grid based games and world generation. The game has the following rules:

Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by underpopulation.

Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.

Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overpopulation.

Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

This tutorial was written with the Godot 3.0 Beta. The final scripts are provided at the end. You can download the completed project from github.

Open Godot 3 and create a new project. I’m going to call mine Game Of Life and create a new folder for it on my desktop. You can create the project anywhere you’d like. When Godot loads, click the 2d button in the top center of the editor to got to 2d view.

Find the Scenes tab, it should be on the right side of the editor. You’ll see a plus sign button, click it to add a new node. Search for a Control node and click Create. Select the newly created Control node and rename it Cell. With the Cell node selected, click the plus button again to add a new Sprite node.

We need to create some folders for our project. Either right click in the resource manager tab and use create new folder or open the project in your OS and do it there. Create the following folders: Sprites, Scenes, Scripts. Save this image as cell.png in the Sprites folder of your project.

Now select the Sprite node. In the inspector, you should see the texture field option. Open the drop down, select load, and then find the cell.png image in your project.

Lets save the scene. Click the Scene button in the top left corner of the editor and select Save As. Save the scene as Cell.tscn in the Scenes folder.

Right click the Cell node and add a child node. Search for the AnimationPlayer node and create it. When you add the AnimationPlayer, the animation window will appear at the bottom of the editor, in the same section that holds the Output and the Debugger.

We need to create two animation states for the cell: Living and Dead. Hit the new animation button (the file with the plus sign). Name it 'Living' -- a cool thing about Godot is that you can animated just about anything in the inspector using the keys that appear to the right of the properties.

We need to set the color of the Sprite node. Find the Modulate property and use the color picker to select white (it should be white by default), then click the key to the right of the modulate property. Hit create to insert the key.

Make a new animation called 'Dead' by repeating this process. Choose the color black (rbg 0,0,0) with the color picker. Remember to hit the key button to insert a new key frame.

Let’s sync the cell to the graphic. Click the cell node and in the inspector find the right margin and left margin properties and change them both to 32. Next click the sprite node and in the inspector unchecked centered. Now the cell and the graphic are lined up.

Now we’re ready to add a script to the Cell. Right click the cell node and choose add script. Save it to the scripts folder and name it cell.gd. Click create and you’ll be taken to the script editor.

We need a few variables to hold our x and y coordinates on the game grid. And a variable for our type (living or dead). Lastly we need the AnimationPlayer node stored to anim so that we can set the animations. We use some simple functions to set the position and also a getter and setter for our tile_type variable.

# CELL extends Control # living or dead var tile_type # position on the grid var x var y # the Animation Playernode onready var anim = get_node("AnimationPlayer") func initialize_tile(x, y): self.x = x self.y = y func set_type(type): tile_type = type # 0 is living 1 is dead if tile_type == 0: anim.play("Lving") else: anim.play("Dead") func get_type(): return tile_type

In the editor, click the Scenes button in the top left and create a new scene. Add a Node2D to the scene using the plus button. Name it GameOfLife and then save the scene as GameOfLife.tscn.

Let’s take care of the set up first. Go ahead and add a new script to the GameOfLife node and save it as game_of_life.gd inside the Scripts folder. Then right click on the GameOfLife node again and add a new child node. Search for the Timer node. Rename it StepTimer.

Repeat the process to create a Position2D node and rename it StartPosition.

Okay that takes care of the set up. Unfortuantely, if we run our game now it doesn't do much of anything. Press the play button in the top right of the editor (above the scene tab), Godot will complain that we haven’t set a main scene. Go ahead and select the GameOfLife.tscn. You’ll get a blank window.

Its time to change that by heading over to the game_of_life.gd script.

This script will need a lot of work. First we’re going to make some variables and then get a reference to the nodes we made in the editor.

# GAME OF LIFE extends Node2D var grid = {} # dictionary to hold all the cells export var width = 10 # total cells wide export var height = 10 # total cells tall export var cell_size = 32 # width/height of the graphic in pixels export var spawn_rate = 50 # percentage to start living var spacer = 5 # distance between cells var start_position # position to start the grid var step_timer # time between each step var cell = preload("res://scenes/cell.tscn") func _ready(): start_position = get_node("StartPosition") step_timer = get_node("StepTimer")

To display the cells we need need to initialize the board. We do this with a nested for loop that steps through each x and y position in the grid. For each position, we instantiate a new cell and place it in the correct position on screen. A type – living or dead – is chosen based on a random number. We’ll also need to add the new cell to the dictionary named grid.

func initialize_grid(): for y in height: for x in width: var new_cell = cell.instance() new_cell.initialize_tile(x,y) new_cell.rect_position = (Vector2(start_position.position.x + x*(cell_size+spacer), start_position.position.y + y*(cell_size+spacer))) add_child(new_cell) grid[Vector2(x,y)] = new_cell

Okay, if we call initialize_grid from the _ready function and hit play, we’ll get a grid of white squares. Pretty boring. We need to randomize the starting tiles based on our spawnrate. Add the following function and then call it from _ready directly after initialize_grid. We also need to include a call to randomize(), otherwise we’ll get the same grid every time.

func randomize_grid(): for y in height: for x in width: var cell = grid[Vector2(x,y)] if rand_range(1,101) <= spawn_rate: cell.set_type(0) else: cell.set_type(1) func _ready(): randomize() start_position = get_node("StartPosition") step_timer = get_node("StepTimer") initialize_grid() randomize_grid()

Congratulations! You now have a grid of random cells. We still need to create the step function and apply Conway’s rules. Before we can do that though, we need to write a helper function that will find the living neighbors of every cell in the grid. This is what it looks like:

func get_living_neighbors(cell): var living_neighbors = 0 for i in range(-1,2): for j in range(-1,2): var x = cell.x+i var y = cell.y+j # looking at ourselves if i == 0 and j == 0: pass # if we're not off the map, get the number of living neighbors elif x >= 0 and x <=width-1 and y >=0 and y <=height-1: if grid[Vector2(x,y)].get_type() == 0: living_neighbors += 1 return living_neighbors

The get neighbors function is one of those pieces of code that you have to write over an over again. Its very useful in game development. Each cell looks at those around it and calculators the total number of living cells.

Now we come to the heart of the project: the step function. This does the heavy lifting, You could call this our game loop, but since we’re making a simulation I think the term step is clearer. In each step we will look at every cell in the grid using a nested for loop. Using get_living_neighbors(), the neighbor count is calculated and then Conway’s rules are applied according to whether the cell is living or dead. Its important that we first record all the new states and not overwrite them as we go along. The births and deaths are suppose to happen simultaneously. I used an array to hold the types for the new cells (either 1 or 0) and then applied them after the first loop is finished with yet another nested for loop.

func step(): # step over each cell in the grid, check if its living or dead # and then apply the rules to the game of life according to the cell's status # Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by underpopulation. # Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation. # Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overpopulation. # Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproductio var types = [] for y in height: for x in width: cell = grid[Vector2(x,y)] var living_neighbors = get_living_neighbors(cell) # living if cell.get_type() == 0: if living_neighbors < 2 or living_neighbors > 3: types.append(1) elif living_neighbors == 2 or living_neighbors == 3: types.append(0) # dead elif living_neighbors == 3: types.append(0) else: types.append(1) # set the types var index = 0 for y in height: for x in width: grid[Vector2(x,y)].set_type(types[index]) index+=1

There is one last step we have to take. We need to use signals: a feature in the Godot Engine that creates a callback for an event. In this case, we want the signal 'timeout' that is emitted from the StepTimer node. This goes in the ready function:

func _ready(): #.... step_timer.connect("timeout", self, "_on_step_timer_timeout")

We need to add this function so that step will run with the timer goes off.

func _on_step_timer_timeout(): step()

Back in the editor, in the GameOfLife scene, find the StepTimer node and click the auto start function. The default time is 1 second, but you can change it to 0.4 seconds if you want to speed things up. Run the game now and you’ll have a working Game of Life clone in Godot. Nice work.

But we can make this better. First, move the StartPosition node in the editor to something like 300 x 100 to center the game in our screen.

For a final touch, I’ll show you how to add a button to reset the game. go to the Game of Life Scene in the editor and add a new Button node. Call it ResetButton and set the text to be RESET. In the game_of_life.gd script, we need add a new variable to serve as a reference to the button and create a function to handle the button press. In the _ready funcion add this variable to the others.

var start_position # position to start the grid var step_timer # var reset_button In the start functino: func _read(): # …. reset_button = get_node("ResetButton") reset_button.connect("pressed", self, "_on_reset_button_pressed") # and add this function to randomize the grid when the button is pressed. func _on_reset_button_pressed(): randomize_grid()

Here's the full scripts.

# GAME OF LIFE extends Node2D var grid = {} # dictionary to hold all the cells export var width = 10 # total cells wide export var height = 10 #total cells tall export var cell_size = 32 # width/height of the graphic in pixels export var spawn_rate = 50 # percentage to start living var spacer = 5 # distance between cells var start_position # position to start the grid var step_timer # var reset_button var cell = preload("res://scenes/cell.tscn") func _ready(): randomize() start_position = get_node("StartPosition") step_timer = get_node("StepTimer") step_timer.connect("timeout", self, "_on_step_timer_timeout") reset_button = get_node("ResetButton") reset_button.connect("pressed", self, "_on_reset_button_pressed") initialize_grid() randomize_grid() func _on_reset_button_pressed(): randomize_grid() func _on_step_timer_timeout(): step() func initialize_grid(): for y in height: for x in width: var new_cell = cell.instance() new_cell.initialize_tile(x,y) # this line does the heaving lifing, adding the start position node to the cell position and includig a spacer new_cell.rect_position = (Vector2(start_position.position.x + x*(cell_size+spacer), start_position.position.y + y*(cell_size+spacer))) add_child(new_cell) grid[Vector2(x,y)] = new_cell func randomize_grid(): for y in height: for x in width: var cell = grid[Vector2(x,y)] if rand_range(1,101) <= spawn_rate: cell.set_type(0) else: cell.set_type(1) func get_living_neighbors(cell): var living_neighbors = 0 for i in range(-1,2): for j in range(-1,2): var x = cell.x+i var y = cell.y+j # looking at ourselves if i == 0 and j == 0: pass # if we're not off the map, get the number of living neighbors elif x >= 0 and x <=width-1 and y >=0 and y <=height-1: if grid[Vector2(x,y)].get_type() == 0: living_neighbors += 1 return living_neighbors func step(): # step over each cell in the grid, check if its living or dead # and then apply the rules to the game of life according to the cell's status # # Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by underpopulation. # Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation. # Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overpopulation. # Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproductio var types = [] for y in height: for x in width: cell = grid[Vector2(x,y)] var living_neighbors = get_living_neighbors(cell) # living if cell.get_type() == 0: if living_neighbors < 2 or living_neighbors > 3: types.append(1) elif living_neighbors == 2 or living_neighbors == 3: types.append(0) # dead elif living_neighbors == 3: types.append(0) else: types.append(1) var index = 0 for y in height: for x in width: grid[Vector2(x,y)].set_type(types[index]) index+=1 # CELL extends Control # living or dead var tile_type # position on the grid var x var y # the Animation Playernode onready var anim = get_node("AnimationPlayer") func initialize_tile(x, y): self.x = x self.y = y func set_type(type): tile_type = type # 0 is living 1 is dead if tile_type == 0: anim.play("Living") else: anim.play("Dead") func get_type(): return tile_type