Jack McLantern is a 3rd Person Indie Fantasy Action game where you play a pumpkin head hero with a scythe, axe and a gun. Your job is to collect souls by slaying minion zombies, skeletons, armored demons and much more. This game is still in development, but for the moment its in beta and free to play.



Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing Jack McLantern in Linux with PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to the Moddb.com version of Jack McLantern. Other versions may require additional steps.

Tips & Specs:

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux Explained

Mint 19 64-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.3.4
Wine: 4.0
DXVK: 1.0.3

Wine Installation

Click Tools
Select "Manage Wine Versions"



Look for the Wine Version: 4.0
Select it
Click the arrow pointing to the right



Click Next

Downloading Wine



Extracting

Installed



Click (amd64) Tab
Select 4.0
Click the arrow pointing to the right



Downloading Wine 64-bit



Installed



Wine 4.0 32-bit and 64-bit is installed, you can close this window

PlayOnLinux Setup

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Install



Click "Install a non-listed program"



Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive"
Click Next



Name the virtual drive: jackmclantern
Click Next



Check all three options:

• Use another version of Wine
• Configure Wine
• Install some libraries

Click Next



Select Wine 4.0
Click Next



Select "64 bits windows installation"
Click Next



Wine Configuration

Application Tab
Windows version: Windows 7



Libraries Tab
Type each of the following:

• d3d10
• d3d10_1
• d3d10core
• d3d11
• dxgi

Select Each One and Click Edit
Check: Native (Windows)
Click Apply



Graphics Tab
Check "Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows"
Click OK



PlayOnLinux Packages

Check the following:

• POL_Install_corefonts
• POL_Install_d3dx10
• POL_Install_d3dx11
• POL_Install_d3dx9
• POL_Install_physx
• POL_Install_tahoma

Click Next



Note: Each packages should automatically download and install

Do not click Browse
Jack McLanters does not have an installer yet...
Click Cancel



Download Jack McLantern Beta
https://www.moddb.com/games/jack-mclantern/downloads
Save to your Desktop
Open JackMcLantern_v###.zip with your Archive Manager
Click Extract



Navigate to the Program Files Directory
Full Path:

Code:

/home/username/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/jackmclantern/drive_c/Program Files/

Click Extract



Click "Show the Files"



Installing DXVK

Download DXVK 1.0.3
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases/tag/v1.0.3
Save to your Desktop and Extract
Open the x64 Directory
Copy all of the DLLs



Go back to the game directory
Paste the DLLs along-side the JackMcLantern.exe executable
Full path:

Code:

/home/username/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/jackmclantern/drive_c/Program Files/JackMcLantern_c033/

PlayOnLinux Shortcut

Back to PlayOnLinux
Click Configure



General Tab
Click "Make a new shortcut from this virtual drive"



Select "JackMcLantern.exe"
Click Next



Name the shortcut: Jack McLantern
Click Next



Select "I don't want to make another shortcut"
Click Next



General Tab
Wine version: 4.0



Note: Click the + to download other versions of Wine. Click the down-arrow to select other versions of Wine

Display Tab
Video memory size: Enter the amount of memory your video card/chip uses



Close Configure

Select "Jack McLantern"
Click Run



Note: Click debug to see bugs and errors

Unity Launcher
Select a resolution and graphics quality
Click Play!



In-Game Optimization

Click Settings
Adjust:

• Ambient Occlusion
• Motion Blur
• Bloom
• Music

Conclusion:
Jack McLantern is still in development and they are doing regular Beta releases. It ran a bit slow so I adjusted the Unity Launcher and set Graphics Quality to "High" which ran much better. You can also turn off Ambient Occlusion or Motion Blur to increase frame rates. Its got a lot of potential and has some interesting action features like a slide attack and bullets that ricochet off shields. The developers are considering a Linux version, but it is planned for later on. Until then, Wine runs it well with DXVK.

Gameplay Video:


Screenshots: