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

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

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>/'

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

- 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

license
-------

see LICENSE