literature.cafe

520 readers
12 users here now
(and anyone else, really)

This is a general special interest lemmy instance focusing on lovers of all things pertaining to reading and writing and all of the people that enjoy it as well as fandoms and niches that exist within reading circles. We federate with other instances, with our local communities being focused primarily on the above.

If you want to federate a new community, go to lemmyverse.net and copy a link to a community and paste it into the search bar. Be patient!

Also, consider installing instance assistant to better navigate lemmy and find communities better! Find links to download them here: firefox, chrome, edge


Instance Rules
  1. Keep it cozy. (No -isms, bigotry, gatekeeping, or general disrespect. Just be nice!)
  2. Please, no visual porn. (Smut and discussion of smut is OK as long as it is tagged as NSFW.)
  3. No spam.
  4. Be mindful of other instance rules.
  5. Keep self-promo to a minimum.
  6. Tag AI generated content as such.
  7. Please avoid piracy.

Server Info

Registration is open with human approval, just to make sure there's no bots afoot. Approval should take less than a day (and are sometimes near instant)

Please check your spam folder for an email from noreply@literature.cafe if you are having difficulty finding email confirmation.

Community creation is enabled. When creating new communities please be mindful of the instance focus.

If you have any issues or concerns, please message an admin

Fediseer Guarantees


For those visiting from other instances, we have a community directory to make finding communities easier: !411@literature.cafe


We also have alternative lemmy UIs to use for those who want them.

A familiar UI - old.literature.cafe

Photon - ph.literature.cafe

Tesseract (photon fork with more multimedia focused features) - t.literature.cafe


Donations are greatly appreciated and go entirely to server costs but are not required.

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founded 1 year ago
ADMINS
1
 
 

Every now and again you come across something that stretches your brain in a new direction. Last week I stumbled on a magic trick of a Choose Your Own Adventure: Al Leonardi’s Ace of Aces, a paper computer running a first-person shooter, programmed in 1980—eleven years before Wolfenstein 3D, the “first” first-person shooter.

...

Choose Your Own Adventures are essentially a look-up table: after each page the player is presented with a list of options and the page to turn to if you choose that option—a look-up table that converts their choice into the next page number.

...

First: what is Ace of Aces? It’s a two-player World War One dogfighting game. One of you is the Red Baron, one of you is Snoopy Biggles, and you attempt to line the other up in your sights for some dakka dakka dakka. So far so several other board games. What sets Ace of Aces apart is the ingenious interface: you play with a pair of picture books, one for the German pilot, one for the Allied pilot. Each page of the book shows you the view of your enemy given your current position.

Each page has a list of manoeuvres you can choose from and the page to turn to that “performs” the manoeuvre. I’ve put “performs” in quotes, but as we’ll see, the look-up table actually has this maths encoded into the page numbers, it’s some sneaky-clever design.

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