Install and patch White Album 2 on Mac

This gist is deprecated. You can find the latest instructions here.

1: Japanese locale and fonts

Japanese locale should be enabled by default on Mac.

You can check by running:

$ locale -a | grep ja

Which should return something like this:

ja_JP
ja_JP.eucJP
ja_JP.SJIS
ja_JP.UTF-8

Japanese fonts should also be preinstalled but, alas, they don't seem to work 100% in wine.

You could install more fonts in hopes of getting one to work properly but I personally didn't bother.

2: Install wine and winetricks

Install XQuartz 2.7.9 (newer releases have font issues).

Download wine (any version you want) and run the installer.

Get the latest release of winetricks:

$ curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks
$ chmod +x winetricks
$ sudo mv winetricks /usr/local/bin

3: Create a wineprefix for the game

Run the wine application, which will launch a terminal window.

There, type the following commands:

$ export WINEARCH=win32
$ export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.local/share/wineprefixes/wa2"
$ mkdir -p "$WINEPREFIX" && wineboot -u

Install wine-mono and wine-gecko if prompted.

4: Install the game

If you've already installed the game elsewhere:

Copy the files to the wineprefix:

(assuming you have them in your home folder)

$ cd "$WINEPREFIX"
$ mkdir "drive_c/Program Files/Leaf"
$ cp -r "$HOME/WHITE ALBUM2" "drive_c/Program Files/Leaf"

Apply a registry edit to act like the game has been installed:

$ curl -o wa2.reg https://ghostbin.com/paste/r627o/download
$ regedit wa2.reg

You can now proceed to the next step.

If you haven't installed the game before:

Mount the disks. To do that, rename both .mdf files to .iso and double click them.

Now, mount them in the wineprefix:

(assuming you have them in your home folder)

$ cd "$WINEPREFIX/dosdevices"
$ ln -s /Volumes/WHITE_ALBUM2_1 x:
$ ln -s /Volumes/WHITE_ALBUM2_2 y:
$ ln -s "$HOME/WHITE_ALBUM2_1.iso" x::
$ ln -s "$HOME/WHITE_ALBUM2_2.iso" y::

Run the setup:

$ cd /Volumes/WHITE_ALBUM2_1
$ LC_ALL=ja_JP wine setup.exe

Some glyphs will show up as squares but most will be fine.

5: Configure wine

Enable opengl:

$ winetricks settings ddr=opengl

Install requirements:

$ winetricks lucida
$ winetricks devenum
$ winetricks d3dx9
$ winetricks quartz
$ winetricks wmp10

The installation of wmp10 may hang after it's finished. You can terminate it with Ctrl + C.

6: Install the patch

Download the latest release of the installer.

Move it to the White Album 2 directory and run it:

$ cd "$WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program Files/Leaf/WHITE ALBUM2"
$ mv "$HOME/Downloads/WA2_patch.exe" .
$ wine WA2_patch.exe

You should now be able to launch the game with this:

$ LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 wine WA2_en.exe

LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 is necessary to be able to run the game. You can set an alias for it by writing alias winegl='LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 wine' in your .bashrc file and then run the game with winegl WA2_en.exe.

That's it!

Other platforms

Instructions for Ubuntu

ObserverOfTime/WA2-Mac.md