Has anyone managed to run it under wine? I have tried with installing the oalinst from the review in the same prefix, but it didn't work

No dice as well. Seems like a fun game, hope we can figure out how to finesse WINE into running it

huh. would it be possible for you to provide the output of "winetricks list-installed" for the prefix you have working (and also the version of wine you're using)? I've tried with a fresh new 64bit prefix on wine 11.5 (Staging), used winetricks to install openal, and still not working for me.

I am using 11.3 through Heroic. My systems wine is 11.5 but since Im running it through HC I guess 11.3 counts.
For the rest, hmm, if I open winetricks through Heroic it says its location is in my heroic/tools.
If I cd to its location and do winetricks list-installed it only shows a few things and not even the one I mentioned so I guess thats not how I do that? But they are:
winxp
vcrun2008
dirac
l3codecx
ffdshow

And if I open the winetricks log for that game it only has that one openAL mentioned and none of the others so that wont help u either I guess lol?

Tell me how and I will :D

HMMMM well I'm not too familiar with Heroic so I'm not sure either ... using just command line wine would be something like:

WINEPREFIX=~/.local/share/wineprefixes/framed winetricks list-installed

(that assumes you have a prefix named "framed" in your home .local/share/wineprefixes)

I tried installing the verbs you had listed there but still no luck on my end

WINEPREFIX=~/.local/share/wineprefixes/framed/ winetricks list-installed
Executing cd /usr/bin
winetricks latest version check update disabled in the Debian package for privacy reasons.
You may enable it by setting WINETRICKS_LATEST_VERSION_CHECK=enabled or creating
------------------------------------------------------
warning: You are using a 64-bit WINEPREFIX. Note that many verbs only install 32-bit versions of packages. If you encounter problems, please retest in a clean 32-bit WINEPREFIX before reporting a bug.
------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
warning: You appear to be using Wine's new wow64 mode. Note that this is EXPERIMENTAL and not yet fully supported. If reporting an issue, be sure to mention this.
------------------------------------------------------
Using winetricks 20250102 : with wine-11.5 (Staging) and WINEARCH=win64
openal
vcrun2008
dirac
l3codecx
ffdshow

My prefix for the game should be this one in the image surely, and it just says what I alr posted to u but not the openAL one lol hmmmm :s

Executing cd /usr/bin
------------------------------------------------------
warning: You are using a 64-bit WINEPREFIX. Note that many verbs only install 32-bit versions of packages. If you encounter problems, please retest in a clean 32-bit WINEPREFIX before reporting a bug.
------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
warning: You appear to be using Wine's new wow64 mode. Note that this is EXPERIMENTAL and not yet fully supported. If reporting an issue, be sure to mention this.
------------------------------------------------------
Using winetricks 20260125 -with wine-11.3 and WINEARCH=win64
remove_mono internal
winxp
vcrun2008
dirac
l3codecx
ffdshow
remove_mono internal

If I do it to the other one in heroic/tools it says the same.
If I do it with the command line ur using with those 2 locations it says nothing is saved there and no log is there.
I dont see any other winetricks.log files anywhere that is related to this, this is weird I dont know then sry :s

I also have this path in image 4 but I cant do any of the above on that path.

Let me try and install it manually with system wine and see if I can find something else for u.

-Edit

I just tested it on a system install with the offline installer.
Here also it wouldnt launch untill I manually added that dll then it worked fine.
This is the list from the default prefix now, but its the same ones as above lol, just now with openAL in it too.
So I dont know what ur missing that it wont work for u sry :(
I hope u can play it cause its a very good game, I am definitly a fan so I hope everyone can get it working.
Let me know if I can help in another way and I will!

------------------------------------------------------
warning: You are using a 64-bit WINEPREFIX. Note that many verbs only install 32-bit versions of packages. If you encounter problems, please retest in a clean 32-bit WINEPREFIX before reporting a bug.
------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
warning: You appear to be using Wine's new wow64 mode. Note that this is EXPERIMENTAL and not yet fully supported. If reporting an issue, be sure to mention this.
------------------------------------------------------
Using winetricks 20260125 with wine-11.3 and WINEARCH=win64
remove_mono internal
winxp
vcrun2008
dirac
l3codecx
ffdshow
remove_mono internal
openal

Unfortunately still not working for me, i even tried a brand new prefix, added all the verbs you have listed, (re)downloaded the offline installer, and still I'm getting

Unhandled exception: page fault on read access to 0x00000562 in wow64 32-bit code (0x010a1caa).

on a 64bit prefix and

Unhandled exception: page fault on read access to 0x00000562 in 32-bit code (0x010a1caa).

on a 32bit prefix.

I guess I'll just have to wait for a new version of WINE to come out, seems like maybe something broke between 11.3 and 11.5

Well thanks for trying! Appreciate the help even though it didn't work out this time.

That sucks, u must be missing something silly elsewhere. Or ur graphic card doing soemthing?
I have had this on and off myself, it works for everyone else but not me and it turned out to be something silly I was missing..
Just to name a few other ideas which prob isnt the issue for u but has helped me b4 with media or audio problems, just to exaust those options: have u tried the -d3d11, and u have the dxvk and vkd3d?
Tried forcing it on win xp or win 7? Since its an audio dll missing, maybe u are missing some other older audio dlls, or a dotnet, I did have this myself some time ago but I cant remember what it was I installed so it worked sry.
You can also try the gst-plugins-ugly and or the Good and Bad one just to exaust that option too, this also worked for me in the past with something media related.
Something to try but dont install all at once so u can see if it work and then uninstall if it again dont so u dont end up with a lot of unecesary stuff lol.

When I search for ur error codes there is a lot of different options, graphic driver, missing mono dependencies etc, so I wuold guess u miss something somewhere yeah.
You could try installing it through Heroic and see if it works if u dl that dll through its prefix, just to see if that is it or something on ur system itself? Did u dl the offline installers through Lutris? There are workarounds there too.
And else ofc Bottles, u can easily dl versions and test.
I can see a thread on other platform with many ppl having issues starting the game if its on windowed mode, so try forcing it to fullscreen or different resolution maybe?
Im out of ideas now oficially tho haha, and Im no expert on this stuff in the first place sry.

Im wondering if the guy who made the thread here got it working by adding this openAL32.dll file or if he also cant get it working? Did u try adding the openAL32.dll manully? If you are on Linux its openAL Runtime 2023 in winetricks.

I've tried all of the above on new prefixes, 32-bit and 64-bit, winxp/win7/win10, with and without Heroic, with Wine (latest, staging, etc) and Proton GE, etc. Every combination. It doesn't work for me either no matter how much I try.

I've tried winetricks openal, as well as installing from files.gog. com/support/oalinst.zip (remove space to download) and various other sources. Doesn't change anything. My screen goes black, comes back, goes black again, and then errors out.

I'm on Linux Mint XFCE (ie. not Wayland) so I wonder if this comes down to distro?

Most interesting to me is the fact that this just doesn't work at all with Proton. It just quits immediately.

Aaaanyway, if anyone reading knows the magic to get this working, please comment :)

The big glaring difference that I can see is that Jinini is using 11.3 and I (and presumable you as well?) are using 11.5. So maybe trying to downgrade WINE to 11.3 might do the trick? I'm not sure I"m THAT motivated to try to get this to work, I might just wait for the next version of WINE to release and try again.

I tested with 11.0 (which is the current stable version), 11.6 (released yesterday) and staging. None work. I haven't tried 11.3 specifically, but I don't think something was fixed and then broken somewhere between 11.0 and 11.6.

I believe something else is wrong.

Could be a distro thing like you said, I'm using plain old boring vanilla Debian 13, and you said you're using Mint (which is also a Debian variant), while Jinini uses Arch I think? IDK, WINE can be finicky, I have prefixes that run modern games like Witcher 3, The Great Circle, Rogue Trader no problem but those same prefixes can't run Frostpunk, go figure. I have one (ONE) prefix that can run FFXIV, I still don't know how I got that working, I swear I'd tried doing everything like 100 times, and on the 101st time of trying "the exact same thing" for some reason it just worked ... still have no idea what I did to magically get that prefix to work for FFXiV lol.

Yeah I dont really think this is it either tbh, its something specific and stupid probably lol :s
-

There are reports on the black screen issue being a resolution bug, so try changing that if u havent already.
Black screen in general is always a media something something missing for me when that happens so I think u guys must be missing something but yeah what exactly :(
Or a resolution issue. Im doing 1920 1080 btw.

I am hesitant now in trying to upgrade mine to test if its purely the wine version that is the culprit here :P
I intentionally do not upgrade wine and other major packages, or even system upgrades, unless necesary and usually only if its a stable version. For these reasons exactly!
My motto is: IF IT WORKS DONT UPGRADE! :P
But, I am using Arch, and Arch tend to throw temper tantrums occasionally when upgrading anything media/gaming related so unless something stops working or starts glitching, there really is no need to upgrade for me.
And 11.5 only just came out so bugs are always bound to be present for a while.

Those of u who have these issues and if changing resolution also doesnt work, maybe u can try downgrading ur wine version and test it?
Dont know the command for ur distros but for me its 'sudo downgrade wine', then simply select the version in the dropdown list.
Im not sure if u need to install downgrade first, for me its a default thing.

Its funny, they say that 11.5 supposedly fixes a bug that had caused games to crash on startup.
Welp.. :P

https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/releases/wine-11.5

https://www.linuxnest.com/wine-11-5-what-linux-gamers-need-to-know-about-the-latest-release/

-Edit
Something else to try that has worked for me b4 when games shut down and which seem to be a frequent culprit also, is installing the dotnet40 in winetricks. (or one of the other dotnets if not)
Additionally, try the mfc120 for this particular game?
Since the new wine version did something with the c++ maybe ur system cant register it, but its still kinda odd if its just this game and not the other games for u acting up too.

I agree. I only like to upgrade when needed.

I'm also on 1920x1080, and I've tried everything that's been suggested. Unfortunately nothing works. I even tried downgrading to Wine 9.

I think this is one of those times when I have to throw in the towel and hope that someone with more Wine and/or Proton experience can come up with a solution.