I'm not able to get The Dark Heart of Uukrul or Darklands, both Dosbox games, to launch on an M1 Mac running Sequoia 15.2. Rosetta is installed.

I assume there is an issue related to Dosbox and the latest Mac OS update.

I could check a few more games, but before I start filing tickets for every individual game, I thought I'd see if anyone in the community had any insights, suggestions, or fixes.

Thanks.

Try using a Dosbox that sucks way less. Mainline dosbox hasn't updated in over a decade aside from minor code changes. I suggest Dosbox Staging, others might suggest Dosbox-X, but the point is, the default Dosbox is moribund.

I also recommend DOSBox Staging. It's packed with many new features (compared to DOSBox 0.74-3) while being stable at the same time.

use a 64-bit dosbox fork like of what the other replies suggested

I hope gog is listening because, unfortunately, I don't know how to do that.

It's not that complicated, but okay. I'll hold your hand.

1) Go to the website I linked. There's letters underlined in my post.

2) Click the apple.

3) Click "Download Stable Version". It'll be a DMG file.

4) Open Finder and navigate to where your browser saves downloads. Probably Downloads.

5) Double, long single, or context click the file. Run according to directions for MacOS.

If you've managed to get this far, you can come ask again.

Github:
https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/releases

As for getting games to run. You would require a bit of irony. First install the game somewhere and then assuming gog didnt strip it down; you would gather the dos files for the game. Then setup dosbox and get the game running in doesbox yourself.

Found the irony yet?

Anyway, dosbox being supplied is probably 32bit and mac as I underatand is a turd....no wait....yes, a turd. But that aside it only allows 64bit right? So yeah....thats not getting fixed. Ask for a refund. As hell will freeze over before gog staff make things function better.

Thank you for the help. Yeah, that part is not complicated. I can do that much.

I should have been more specific. Once I had dosbox staging installed, what I wouldn't know how to do is to extract the necessary game resources from the current standalone installations of these game that are using dosbox and place them in standalone installations that use dosbox staging.

Frankly, I don't even know if what I've just said there even makes sense.

https://www.dosbox-staging.org/getting-started/introduction/

https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/wiki/Frequently-asked-questions#where-is-the-config-file

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Inno-Extract is a program that allows you to extract files from GOG installers:

* Youtube Video - How to Use Inno-Extract

* Inno-Extract - Downloads

* Inno-Extract - Manual Page

Inno-Extract is a command line tool, meaning that you must run CMD or Powershell (Windows), Bash (Linux), or Terminal (MacOS) in order to use this program.

Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7 - How to Open Command Prompt / CMD

Windows - How to Open Powershell

Linux - How to Open Bash

MacOS - How to Open Terminal

When running Inno-Extract without arguments, the game folder(s) and file(s) will be extracted to the current directory. To avoid this scenario, use the -d switch to specify a destination directory. If you use the -d switch and the destination directory does not exist, the -d switch will create it. However, the parent directory must exist or extracting will fail.

Though, you could also try dragging and dropping game executables onto Dosbox's staging icon, if it works anything like Windows.

Thanks again for your help. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a Mac version of that program available to download. However, I can open the game application package (that isn't launching) and get to all the game and dosbox resources that way. Is it possible to take those game resources and drag-and-drop them into an application package that uses "dosbox staging" instead of "dosbox"?

For Inno-extract, you'll need to install either https://www.macports.org/install.php or https://brew.sh/ .

Their respective pages are https://ports.macports.org/port/innoextract/ or https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/innoextract .

What my fellow forum dwellers keep missing, is that you have explained your lack of knowledge multiple times. This is not an insult. So providing links is fine, but having no idea how to figure out how to use the tools provided wont help. Thus, the reason I mentioned requesting a refund for games you cannot run.

Besides which, when I wrote what I had already. It still stands to reason, that not all DOS games on gog are in their untouched state. Gog changes files in games as to fit their need. So even if you could unpack the ones you want. You would be required to gamble/guess which would have what you need, while buying them and then hope that the refund of X amount of games will be refunded, for the games you cant get running.

This all assuming you had the skill to use the tools provided and the knowledge of exactly what to pull out of the purchased games.

So yeah, request a refund is your best option. The other option is buy a cheap laptop from Walmart for $200. Any piece of crap from them will run Windows, DOS games. Avoid Chromebooks. Make sure its a Windows pc.

edit-typos...and forgot a word

I'm on a much earlier macOS than 15.2, but based on my experience you shouldn't need to use Inno-Extract with GOG's DOS game apps. If (as you said) you're able to open the game app (by right-clicking and using 'show package contents') and navigate down quite a few levels deep you'll eventually come across the DOS files you need. I don't use DOSBox Staging so I'm not sure of the exact method to add them to that (I use Boxer which works well for me for my earlier MacOS), but it definitely should work (with Boxer I can just drag them over to the Boxer app icon add them).

Thanks for giving it to me straight. In my defense, while I am ignorant when it comes to these sorts of issues, I'm not inept at following instructions and *eventually* figuring things out.

But, yeah, I don't want to dive down a rabbit hole (from my point of view) for these games, especially, if as you're saying, gog may have modified them in such a way that I couldn't get them running under dosbox staging regardless.

For the time being, I'll guess I'll wait to see if anything comes from the ticket I filed. How long does it generally take gog support to respond to tickets?