I'm a senior citizen newbie who really has little experience with computers but I want to try a game, one that does remind me of the carnage of Vietnam or which I was a part. Here is what I did...

I signed up, selected and paid for three games, one of which is Beyond Atlantis. Then I downloaded the installer. All I have so far is the downloader which opens in a window of it's own. I can set options but there are no games listed for downloading. So what happened? Do I wait until my order is processed further, does it take a day or so, or what? Little on the website makes sense to me. Lots of talk about all the advantages but how one actually does something besides paying is unclear (to me at least). There is seemingly no way to find out what to do and there is no teenager in my house to clue me in so here I am on the forum.

ps I used the "contact us" feature and sent a message. That was three days ago. I get automated responses which receipted my inquiry but no actual answer from a human. Is all this normal for the computer age or am I just completely out of my depth?

Did I do something wrong?

FYI I am on a new 'puter with Windows 8.1.

In internet explorer on the GoG site, click "My Account". Click a game you have bought. Should be self-explanatory from there.

Go to "My Account" and there should appear a shelf with all your games. Choose the game you want to download and then click on the grey bar called "Windows installer". Your browser will ask you if you want to download the game with the "GOG.com downloader". Click "Accept". The downloader should open and start to download the game.

Edit: I just saw that PDS41 was faster.

Thanks maybe the trouble is that I do not use IE because it does not allow ad blocking. I use Firefox. Should I switch back to IE just for this occasion? Secondly on the "my games" page there is no instruction for downloading anything except the "downloader (for Windows)" which I did. Clicking on the game icon does nothing and scanning the entire page reveals nothing further that might be clicked on to download the game.

There are also seven games on "my page" which I did not want but I guess that's a separate issue.

Maybe I'll try it again with ad blocker turned off. Think that will help?

I bet Gog has no trouble billing me. Ha.

Two ways

WITH the downloader:
1)Go to your shelf.
2)Click on the game you want to download.
3)Make sure "Gog.com Downloader mode" is switched to "On"
4)Click on the white box marked "Windows Installer"
5)wait for download to finish then locate the file (The downloader should have a button that will take you straight to the folder it's located in)
6)Run installer.

WITHOUT Downloader:
1)Go to shelf
2)Click on Game desired
3)Make sure "Gog.com Downloader mode" is switched to "Off"
4)Click on the link marked "Windows Installer"
5)Select a download location (edit: My Firefox automatically downloads to "MY Downloads" in "My documents" Don't know where the default is on 8, I'm on Vista)
6)Find installer and run.

I wanted to make it as clear as possible. The seven games are free and are given to every new account. Enjoy the games! :)

Firefox with an Ad-Blocker can´t be the issue. I use it all the time like that and it works perfectly fine.

Are you referring to the free ones (Beneath a Steel Sky, the two Worlds of Ultima games, Tyrian and so on)? It is possible to hide them, or just just take them for a spin at some point if you are feeling bored.

Note that purchasing the game does not automatically put it in the downloader queue, so that's why you do the simple manual steps described previously by other forum-ites.

It's just a different philosophy where there isn't as much automation and hand-holding as you might get from, say, Steam.

Note: excessive heat and moisture - like that which come from steam - is bad for computer hardware. ; )

OK thanks for the info regarding the seven extra games. Why don't they make it clear so as to avoid confusion?

Regarding the instructions which yo kindly provide. I did all of that. So far I have the installer on my computer but no games are listed in it's window. So..... with no entries in the downloader window there is nothing to click on. So... no game. The question remains... I have managed to download the installer but how one downloads a game remains a mystery.

Am I wrong to think that my games should be listed in the downloader window?

Sigh!

Visual guide :)
(used Alan Wake because I don't have Beyond Atlantis downloaded at the moment :)

Ahah! You say I push the Gog downloader "off" then click on the big game button and it downloads? OK I'll try that. Be right back...

The games are NOT listed in the Downloader. You find them on GOG.com if you click on "My account". It’s the same place where you see the free games (which by the way are clearly marked as “free”).

well , if the downloader mode is enable you should see a green button , otherwise it's a greyed one.

by default it's a greyed one iirc, but even if it's the downloader mode is enable, you should click the large button under this one, to initiate the download, it's not automatic ;) . However, with the downloader all parts of the installer (if there are multiples files) are downloaded automaticaly.

follow the screencaps provided by Novotnus :) : except you should push the downloader mode on.

OK I figured it out at last. Apparently the game downloading button was there all the time.

With the Gog downloading button clicked "off" I looked over on the left and saw "Windows installer" and clicked on it and now my game is downloading normally.

I missed it because it did not specifically tell me that it was where my selected game would be downloaded from. It seemed to imply that it was only a generic downloader and not the game itself.

This is the sort of trouble I have with computers. A learning curve issue I suppose. I have to learn to adjust my expectations and not to make assumptions with what he programming is saying on websites. It's not always clear what the hell is going on.

Thanks for all the help to everyone.... for your patience with this old timer.

FYI the reason I want games is so that, in old age, my hand/eye coordination can stay reasonably sharp.

I'm not ready for bingo at the church hall with a bunch of decrepit oldies yet...

Thanks again.