I use a packager to build for each OS. I'm not sure why the linux version is so hard to work with. It is marked as executable so you should be able to run it. You certainly don't need to make anything.
For it to work for me I had to open a terminal, `cd` to the right directory and then run './cyocyoa'.
Your idea for a journal or quest log sounds awesome. I'll consider adding that to a future build. Thanks!