I have installed the game, but when I push the play button in GOG, the green play button turns gray for a short while when loading.
But then it turns back to green and the game won´t start at all, I have tried many times.
Could someone please tell what the problem might be and maybe give me a solution.
Or did I just buy a game from GOG that doesen´t work??? :(

Try playing the game without GOG Galaxy. Did it work then or did you get an error message?

Just picked this up and i am having the same issue. When launching a black window appears than a windows prompt saying Arcania has stopped working. Would like to mention that during instalation the game tried to install some PhysX version but failed due to there being a more recent version installed on my machine.Tried launching the game while gog client was not running with the exact same result. All this is happening under win 10.

Actually, now when you mention it, it was the same for me with that PhysX thingy. Though I didn´t give much thought about it at the time when I was installing the game but now...

It is a little bit strange, that PhysX thingy showed up when I installed ArcaniA: The fall of Setarrif as well, but at least that game worked perfectly fine when I started it without any problems whatsoever.
(but I uninstalled it again anyway, because I would really like to play the original ArcaniA game first before that one)

I really hope someone eventually will find the solution to this problem so you and me both, and everybody else with the same issue can play it some day. :)

Hey NorSos, i did manage to find a solution/workaround and was able to play the game normally, however I have some doubts that this may work for other people.

The problem I have, and am able to replicate 100% of the time, is that the game crashes whenever I start it and my sound output in windows is set to speakers. If I run the sound output through my headphones, my monitor speakers (through hdmi), or an optical output the game launches just fine.

Now to clarify a bit how my system is set up; I run a dual monitor system off of an Assus Maximus VIII Ranger motherboard with a RealTek ALC1150 audio chip. From the rear audio port (the 3.5mm jack at the back of the board where all the other ports are, usb, network/etc) I run my speakers and from the front audio port (the one that comes at the front of most PC cases near the power/reset switches) I run my headphones. I do this so I can easily toggle between the two without having to switch cables all the time. Now the thing is, I swapped the outputs (I connected my headphones to the back and speakers to the front) and now the game starts when the sound is set to speakers but not when it is set to headphones.

TLDR; the game crashes whenever the sound output device is set to the rear audio port on my motherboard, and the game works whenever it is set to anything else.

OS is Windows 10home (x64) Build 14393.21225

As I said this looks like a really specific hardware problem so it may not work for you but it’s worth a try. Just set the audio output to anything but the rear jack (you can do this in windows or your dedicated audio driver if you have one) and see if it works.

Let me know if you have any questions.

I realize this is an old post but I figured I'd chime in to mention that this is simpler than just which device you're using. It turns out that this is actually due to Windows having too high a bitrate set.

I couldn't get Arcania to load at all and when I hit up Google, found this page, and tried the above solution. Which worked. But what I noticed was that "headphones" had a lower bitrate. Turns out my system was set to 24-bit 192000 and what was needed was to drop that down to 24-bit 44100 instead. Once that was done, Arcania fired up just fine.

This setting is available in the Windows Control Panel, Sound menu, find your sound card device, click the properties button, and go to the advanced tab. There should be a drop down to select the quality level. Change it there until your game starts working again.

Skyrim Classic had this same bug back in 2011 but Bethesda fixed it on their end. Obviously whoever was in charge of Arcania never did.