tar -xzvf filename.tar.gz

Gameboy Advance Version

Flash solutions have advanced a lot since I first released POWDER. Modern solutions use normal flash cards to transfer the file - you can just copy powder123.gba to your flash card and it is ready to play. Unfortunately, being homebrew, you can't "patch" POWDER with any of your card's special saving abilities. This might make it difficult to save games as they need to be written from the local SRAM onto the flash card. With a Supercard Mini SD I had luck with the "Quick Power Cycle" method, but I have seen cartridges for which this doesn't work.

Nintendo DS Version

Two files are present, a .ds.gba and a .nds. Depending on your solution, you only need one of them. If in doubt, use the .nds file. POWDER supports DLDI so you can, if needed, patch it to support saving. During start up it prints out if it found a FAT filesystem - if it found one saving should work. If it doesn't find one, saved games will not survive a power cycle.

All auxillary files are saved and read from /DATA/POWDER, regardless of where POWDER itself is copied onto your flash drive. That directory will be created if it doesn't exist. If it fails to create, it will default to using the current directory of POWDER.

Windows Version

The released .zip contains a simple executable. Run it.

You may need to grant execute permissions to the .dll's provided.

Mac Version

Drag and drop the POWDER program from inside the .dmg into the location in which you want to play it. .TXT and .SAV files will be created in that location, so you might consider making a subdirectory rather than running on your desktop. It should then Double Click and run.

Versions after 100 require OSX 10.4 or above, but should support both PPC and Intel Macs.

Linux Version

The released .tar.gz contains a simple executable. Run it. You may then discover that you need to install the most excellent SDL library. You may also discover that your variant of Linux won't work for some arcane C runtime library reason. Let me know the version of Linux and the error, and I may be able to do something. Versions after and including 097 are built on Debian Stable, and after and including 100 with statically linked libraries.