So I’ve got this dumb idea, but who knows, maybe it will work?

Lemmy seems to support uploading <video> content, and .mp4 seems to be universally supported on modern web-browsers (phone, Windows, Linux, and Mac).

There’s a number of animations that can be described in textual form: Chess puzzles, Go puzzles, and other boardgames. Or video game strategies (Age of Empires 2 build orders. Starcraft). Factorio designs, etc. etc.

For example, in the game of Tetris, strong players would help teach the game to newer players through the use of Fumens. This particular Fumen is represented by the base64-encoded data: v115@BhilFeAtglR4Beg0RpBtR4Ceg0RpAtzhAeh0JeAgWW?AURVSASYNuEw488AQr78AwKY5DkoBAAvhBtsuAAlsBzgQ4I?eR4CeRpwhBeglQ4CeRpwhAeAtglFewhBthlEewhAtKeAAPX?AS1STAS4kcDnoo2AMoo2AQieeEFcxCA, which could theoretically turn into a .mp4 animation describing the different positions of the game of Tetris.

So if a strong Tetris player wanted to discuss a Tetris position, they’d enter Fumen (Javascript), create the rendering, and then call the bot with (!fumen2mp4 v115@BhilFeAtg…), and then the bot would reply by uploading a .mp4 of the Fumen positions, to allow different Tetris players to communicate about the game.

I recognize that’s a lot more work than a typical bot, but hey, lets exchange some of the more “difficult” ideas that might be worth working on.

Again: many games require this kind of visualization to have good discussions. Tetris is one obvious example, but so does Chess, Go, maybe Settlers of Catan, Magic the Gathering, and more.