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QuadLife

As explained in Fast Python: High performance techniques for large datasets

QuadLife is a colored extension of Conway's Game of Life in which live cells can have four color states and additional color-transition rules.

QuadLife extends Conway’s Game of Life with four live-cell colors—red, green, blue, and yellow—while retaining birth, survival, death, and toroidal wrap-around rules. section 5.6

Represent and advance the world with a compact NumPy-and-Cython pipeline:

  • Store a SIZE_Y by SIZE_X uint8 NumPy array, using zero for dead cells and values one through four for colors. section 5.6
  • Run the state transition in typed Cython using memoryviews, disabled checks, and nongeneral operations to reduce Python interaction. section 5.6.1

Color transition

When a dead cell has three live neighbors, it becomes live. A majority color supplies the new color; if all three live neighbors differ, the cell takes the remaining fourth color. section 5.6

How Fast Python: High performance techniques for large datasets covers it

How deep it goes
Descends to typed state storage, wrapped-border construction, neighbor counting, and GIL-related optimization trade-offs.
Examples
Uses random grids, wrapped extended boards, and evolving visualizations rendered through tkinter and Pillow.
What it assumes
Assumes familiar Python and introduces the implementation through previously established Cython typing, memoryviews, and compiler checks.
What you can do after
Builds a runnable QuadLife simulator with Python orchestration and a Cython-optimized transition kernel.
How it connects
Connects Conway’s Game of Life, NumPy, Cython, memoryviews, and the Python GIL.
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Related concepts

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