welcome to mastosnake
=====================

mastosnake is a community-driven croudsourced snake
application, inspired by the twitter account 'Twitter Plays
Snake' written in python.

behaviour
---------

every hour, roughly, mastosnake posts a poll to the given
account configured. this poll contains the game board and
score. the poll gives absolute directions as to how the
snake should move its head. players vote on the direction, and
when the hour is up, the snake moves in that particular
direction. should there be a tie, the option that is higher on
the list is decided.

module requirements
-------------------

- requests
- json
- time

this application has been tested on python 3.9.5 (compiled
with gcc 10.2.0).

installation
------------

- make a mastodon application

  with the default mastodon interface, navigate to
  preferences > development and click 'new
  application'.

  populate the fields 'application name' and 'application
  website' however you wish.

  in the 'scopes' subheader, enable the scopes 'read' and
  'write'. disable any other otherwise checked scopes, as
  they are not needed.

  click 'submit'.

- get the access token

  make sure you're still in the perferences > development
  menu.

  click on the name of the application you've just created,
  and copy-paste the field containing 'Your access token'.

  make note of this access token (in a text file, whatever)

- get the instance

  look at the URL in your web browser and inspect the domain.
  usually this is the instance name.

  make note of the instance name.

- configure the software

  in the source tree, create a file called 'config.py' and
  populate it with the following text:

token = '<your access token>'
host = '<your instance name here>/'
dimensions = (5, 5)

  make sure that a forward-slash proceeds the host; otherwise
  the software will not work correctly.

  for 'dimensions', it is simply the x-y measurements of the
  board. negative numbers are not tested for, nor are
  fractional numbers.

- start up the software

  run main.py as 'python3 main.py', or, if your system is
  a Unix-like, ./main.py.

warnings
--------

- verify that your instance allows running bots
- do not make your bot too spammy, this could make you get
  banned from the instance

see also
--------

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cREl1kB6hRs
- https://twitter.com/SnakeGameBot
- https://tilde.zone/web/accounts/136905

license
-------

see LICENSE