# cellular automata toys in löve2d

## toys

### ants

![ants](ant.gif)

langton's ant, heavily inspired by Andrew Healey's [blog post](https://healeycodes.com/virtual-ants) and [code](https://github.com/healeycodes/virtual-ants).

supports multiple colors by passing a custom set of rules, see [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langton%27s_ant#Extension_to_multiple_colors).

click on the screen to spawn new ants.

### life

![life](life.gif)

conway's game of life. supports other life-like cellular automata rules, see [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-like_cellular_automaton#A_selection_of_Life-like_rules)

left click or click and drag to flip cells on, and right click to spawn a glider.

### wireworld

![wireworld](wireworld.gif)

wireworld.

left click to toggle conductors (wires) on and off. right click to spawn an electron head in a conductor. spacebar to toggle play/pause.

## colorbrewer

this repo includes a lua interface to [the lovely and accessible ColorBrewer2 colorschemes based on the research of Dr. Cynthia Brewer](https://colorbrewer2.org), based on [the original ColorBrewer code](https://github.com/axismaps/colorbrewer/) and the implementation in [Chroma.js](https://github.com/gka/chroma.js/).

## running the toys

if you have [löve](https://github.com/love2d/love) installed on your system, you can just run the toys by name:

```bash
love ants
# run with a cool square pattern
love ants LRRRRRLLR
# other options
love ants <rule> <grid-unit-width-px> <simulation-steps-per-frame> 

love life
# run with HighLife rules
love life B36/S23
# other options
love life <rule> <grid-unit-width-px> <simulation-steps-per-frame>

love wireworld
```

if you have [nix](https://nixos.org), you can use the provided flake.nix to get a working environment for running the games, as well as support for hot reloading if you want to hack on them.

```bash
nix develop
love ...
```