Is there an easy to script 2d game world?

Question

For a school project we're developing a game that's a little like Conway's game of life, with different organisms taking up slots in the world and then eating each other. I would like to see this take place in a 2d world. Like being able to take starcraft and have zergling and marines play roles. The problem with starcraft is that the whole algorithm would have to be written inside of the game editor, and starcraft isn't free or open source. So is there another engine that is starcraft/warcraft/AOE-ish that can be scripted from outside of the game and is freely available? (I'm asking a lot here I know)

Answer 1

There is at least the Spring engine, which is an open-source strategy game engine, scriptable in LUA (the games based on the enginer are nice too), but using a strategy game engine for such an assignment seems overkill. I would recommend keeping the work simple.

http://springrts.com/

Answer 2

You can add scripting to whatever application you make.

You'll have to make the game, then add a scripting engine/language and plug some functions from your game in the language. Then you'll be able to "script" your game.

Some open-source an free engines are available around here. I suggest you use SFML http://www.sfml-dev.org if you're using C++.

If you don't know any programming language, start there OR use something like Macromedia Fusion or GameMaker. They allow scripting.