Help a clueless person run a simple program

Rhaomi — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:31:18 -0800

A plea for help in installing/running a seemingly simple open-source program on a Windows box. I'm a big fan of the flash game Dice Wars, but after a few ~~dozen~~ ~~hundred~~ thousand playthroughs, I'm left wanting more. So I was intrigued when I learned of an indie remake of the game called DiceWarz.

Unfortunately for me, this game hails from the Linux universe, and as a Windows user I'm bristling at the unfamiliar context in which I've found the game.

For starters: the game data is found here. Seems like all the relevant rules and data files are there. There was no obvious installer, but I knew enough to recognize the "tarball" referenced at the bottom as a compact package of the needed files.

So I grabbed the tar, opened it in Izarc, and successfully extracted the game's innards to my desktop. Here's where I'm stuck.

I've got a folder with a mixture of things: a bunch of js files, a bin file, a configuration file, and an MS Word doc (which offers no help in actually running the thing). Given these files, what do I need to do to get the program running?

I'm usually reasonably proficient at this stuff, but I'm at a loss here. I don't have a lot of experience working with Javascript (which is apparently what the games is built with). And searching Google has led to horrifying open-source DIY jargon like this. It's hard to find what you need when you don't speak the language! And I would inquire at the site I got the files from, but even that is a confusing setup of directories and references to CVS's and BBS's that I just can't follow.

Please disabuse me of my ignorance! And many thanks in advance.

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Help a clueless person run a simple program