Install the desktop app

You can run the game locally on your Windows / Linux desktop without internet access if you install it as a desktop app. MacOS is not supported yet. Also, if you want to install the game on a 32-bit machine, there are no pre-built packages, and you need to build the app youself.

Install on Windows

First, download the zip package for Windows from releases. Just extract the contents of the zip file to somewhere you want to install the game. Then, you may launch the game by running the script launcher.vbs in the game directory.

Optionally, you may create a desktop shortcut for the file launcher.vbs. There are icon files in the www/icon folder, you may change the icon of the shortcut to the icon of the game.

Install on Linux

First, download the tar.gz package for Linux from releases. Just extract the tar.gz file to somewhere you want to install the game. Then, you may launch the game by running the script launcher.sh in the game directory.

Optionally, you may create a desktop entry for executing the file launcher.sh. The icon can be specified as the one in the www/icon folder.

Here is an example of the desktop entry (you should replace /path/to/dododo with the actual absolute path of the game):

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Dododo
Comment=The open-source community rhythm game with musical notations
Icon=/path/to/dododo/www/icon/icon.png
Exec=/path/to/dododo/launcher.sh
Path=/path/to/dododo/
Terminal=false
Categories=Game;

Update the desktop app

To update the game, download the www-only version of the released package from releases, and extract the www folder in it to replace the www folder of the old installed version.

Build the desktop app

There is a Ruby script to wrap the game into a self-contained web app which can be run using NW.js. To build the desktop app, first install Ruby, and then run

git clone https://github.com/dododogame/dododo.git
cd dododo
bundle install # and resolve all errors if there are any
rake build

You can build for different platforms (Windows or Linux) and for different architectures (ia32 or x64). By default, the platform and the architecture are determined according to the OS on which you are building the app. You may provide additional arguments for rake build to specify the platform and the architecture.

Currently, only the script for building for Windows and Linux are provided. There are indeed NW.js releases for MacOS, but using it to build the app requires the toolchain that is only available on MacOS (so actually you may try building the app without using the Ruby script if you have a MacBook). Also, because there are no official releases for NW.js for machines of ARM architecture, if you want to build the app for ARM architecture, you need to download the community NW.js ARM binaries and specify the downloaded NW.js in the command-line argument nwjs_path (see the table below).

Here is a full list of available command-line arguments:

Argument Default Available values Description
platform Determined by your OS win, linux The platform to build for
architecture Determined by your OS ia32, x64 The architecture to build for
quiet false true, false Whether to supress output
target_path ./pkg Any path The path to the output directory
temp_dir ~/.cache/dododo Any path The directory to store some downloaded or extracted files
nwjs_version 0.67.1 Any version The version of NW.js to use if it is to be downloaded
nwjs_path $temp_dir/nwjs-v$nwjs_version-$platform-$architecture.<ext>, where <ext> is tar.gz or zip according to platform Any path The pre-downloaded NW.js to be used; will download for you if non-exist
www_only false true, false Whether to build only the web files; no NW.js if true
package false true, false Whether to package the app for distribution after building completes; will create a .tar.gz or .zip file according to platform

For example, to build for 32-bit Windows and create a zip file for distribution, run

rake build platform=win architecture=ia32 package=true