{"id":124,"date":"2010-08-02T12:50:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-02T16:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/02\/spreadsheet-games-the-game-of-life\/"},"modified":"2019-10-18T15:08:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T19:08:58","slug":"spreadsheet-games-the-game-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/02\/spreadsheet-games-the-game-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Spreadsheet Games: The Game of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"d942c2121bfbd137a3b44056a000f09c\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Responsive Top -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-9531091850463532\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"6574318169\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>When I asked people to send examples of interesting things they were doing with spreadsheets, Peter Burke sent this example of <a title=\"John Conway's Game of Life\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Conway&#8217;s Game of Life<\/a> simulator, programmed in Excel.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"GameLife01\" src=\"http:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/GameLife01.png\" alt=\"GameLife01\" width=\"372\" height=\"259\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Peter, who&#8217;s from Glasgow, Scotland, explained how his program came about:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We hold coding dojo\u2019s (<a href=\"http:\/\/codingdojo.org\/cgi-bin\/wiki.pl?WhatIsCodingDojo\">http:\/\/codingdojo.org\/cgi-bin\/wiki.pl?WhatIsCodingDojo<\/a> ) and one of the subjects was coding a game of life simulator.. needless to say, my excel offering was the only working version at the end of the two hours\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>The Game of Life Rules<\/h3>\n<p>The Game of Life is based on a starting pattern in a grid, where every cell has 8 neighbours. From that initial pattern, the game progresses in steps. The rules are simple &#8212; at each step in the game:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>A live cell stays alive if it has 2 or 3 live neighbours, otherwise it dies.<\/li>\n<li>A dead cell comes to life if it has exactly 3 live neighbours, otherwise it stays dead.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>How the Game of Life Simulator Works<\/h3>\n<p>In Peter&#8217;s version of the Game of Life simulator, you can start fresh, by clicking the &#8220;All Dead&#8221; button. Then, create your own starting pattern, by selecting from the drop down lists in the grid, to make cells Live (L) or Dead (D).<\/p>\n<p>There are also a couple of preset starting patterns, and you can add those by clicking &#8220;Create Glider&#8221; or &#8220;Create Spaceship&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>You can adjust the maximum number of steps, and the wait time between steps.<\/p>\n<p>Then, click the &#8220;Step Thru&#8221; button, to start the game, and click Stop, or let the game run its course. You&#8217;ll see the current step number at the top of the worksheet, in cell Q2.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border: 0px;\" title=\"GameLife02\" src=\"http:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/GameLife02.png\" alt=\"GameLife02\" width=\"390\" height=\"192\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Download the Game of Life Sample Excel File<\/h3>\n<p>You can download Peter&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/gameoflife.zip\">Game of Life<\/a> file, and experiment with your own starting patterns. The file is zipped, and in Excel 2003 format. It has macros, so you&#8217;ll have to enable them to test the game.<\/p>\n<p>I made one minor tweak to Peter&#8217;s code, by removing a &#8220;Select&#8221; statement, so the game would be a bit less jumpy.<\/p>\n<h3>How Do You Use Spreadsheets?<\/h3>\n<p>What unusual spreadsheet applications have you created? If you have something you can share, please let me know!<\/p>\n<p>________________<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I asked people to send examples of interesting things they were doing with spreadsheets, Peter Burke sent this example of John Conway&#8217;s Game of Life simulator, programmed in Excel. Peter, who&#8217;s from Glasgow,&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spreadsheet-day","category-spreadsheets","tag-game-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spreadsheet-day.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}