life-cli

A terminal-based implementation of Conway's Game of Life written in Python. It simulates the classic cellular automaton in a toroidal grid and includes an interactive editor mode for creating custom patterns directly in the terminal.

Features

• Real time controls: Pause, resume and adjust simulation speed.
• Interactive editor: Pause the simulation and toggle cells
• Toroidal grid: The edges wrap around
• Zero dependencies: Built entirely with Python's standard library.

Usage

This application uses sys.stdin, tty and termios and thus runs natively on Unix-like environments without requiring external packages.

git clone https://github.com/vrncff/life-cli.git
cd life-cli
python main.py

Controls

Normal mode:

• SPACE: Play/Pause
• +/-: Increase/Decrease simulation speed
• r: Generate a random grid state
• e: Enter editor mode
• q: Quit

Editor mode:

• h, j, k, l: Move cursor (left, down, up, right)
• SPACE: Toggle the current cell (alive/dead)
• e: Exit editor mode
• q: Quit

How It Works

The project is structured to separate mathematical logic from state management and the user interface:

• core.py: Contains stateless functional logic for grid creation, neighbor counting and application of the game's rules without mutating the input state.
• engine.py: The LifeEngine class acts as the controller. It maintains the current generation state, manages the simulation tick rate and coordinates the switch between simulation and editor modes.
• ui_terminal.py: Handles terminal rendering and intercepts keystrokes using sys.stdin and termios.
• patterns.py: Defines relative coordinate matrices for classic Game of Life patterns.

To-Do

• Add an interactive menu to spawn predefined patterns into the grid.
• Load initial grid states from a text file.
• Make the grid dimensions adjustable