Population simulation leads to Valentine’s Day a[R]t

Working on a quick-and-dirty simulation of people wandering around until they find neighbors, then settling down. After playing with the coloring a bit I arrived at the above image, which I quite like. Code below:

# Code by Matt Asher for statisticsblog.com
# Feel free to modify and redistribute, but please keep this notice 
 
maxSettlers = 150000
 
# Size of the area
areaW = 300
areaH = 300
 
# How many small movements will they make to find a neighbor
maxSteps = 200
 
# Homesteaders, they don't care about finding a neighbor
numbHomesteaders = 10
 
areaMatrix = matrix(0, nrow=areaW, ncol=areaH)
 
# For the walk part
adjacents = array(c(1,0,1,1,0,1,-1,1,-1,0,-1,-1,0,-1,1,-1), dim=c(2,8))
 
# Is an adjacent cell occupied?
hasNeighbor <- function(m,n,theMatrix) {
	toReturn = FALSE
	for(k in 1:8) {
		yCheck = m + adjacents[,k][1]
		xCheck = n + adjacents[,k][2]
		if( !((xCheck > areaW) | (xCheck < 1) | (yCheck > areaH) | (yCheck < 1)) ) {
			if(theMatrix[yCheck,xCheck]>0) {
				toReturn = TRUE
			}
		}
	}
	return(toReturn)
}
 
 
# Main loop
for(i in 1:maxSettlers) {
	steps = 1
	xPos = sample(1:areaW, 1)
	yPos = sample(1:areaH, 1)
 
	if(i <= numbHomesteaders) {
		# Seed it with homesteaders
		areaMatrix[xPos,yPos] = 1
	} else {
		if(areaMatrix[xPos,yPos]==0 & hasNeighbor(xPos,yPos,areaMatrix)) {
			areaMatrix[xPos,yPos] = 1
		} else {
			spotFound = FALSE
			outOfBounds = FALSE
 
			while(!spotFound & !outOfBounds & (steps<maxSteps)) {
 
				# Look for a new location in one of adjacent 9 cells, while still in area
				steps = steps + 1
				movement = adjacents[,sample(1:8,1)]
				xPos = xPos + movement[1]
				yPos = yPos + movement[2]
 
				if( (xPos > areaW) | (xPos < 1) | (yPos > areaH) | (yPos < 1)) {
					outOfBounds = TRUE
				} else if(hasNeighbor(xPos,yPos,areaMatrix) ) {
					areaMatrix[xPos,yPos] = steps
					spotFound = TRUE
				}
			}
		}
 
	}
 
}
 
image(areaMatrix, col=rev(rgb(seq(0.01,1,0.01),seq(0.01,1,0.01),seq(0.01,1,0.01))))
 
# I think this version looks nicer!
# areaMatrix[areaMatrix !=0] = 1
# image(areaMatrix, col=rev(rgb(.5,0,seq(0.2,1,0.2))))