I play windows games on windows, but this sort of ancient RPG is much more convenient for me on my macbook. I know I can package them myself, and I probably will, but still I'd be much happier with them prepackaged for my "mobile" gaming platform.

I'd be happy to buy ten more copies myself, for what it's worth.

I'm no expert on running DOS games on Mac, but can't you simply use the Mac version of DOSBox? That would work essentially the same as it does on PC I would think.

I've also heard others use the Boxer program, but I've never tried it myself.

Yes, I'm sure I can get them running on mac dosbox. But that's not what I come to gog for. I come to gog for the full package. Download & Launch.

But the Windows version also uses DOSBox. So wouldn't it be the same? Unless the configuration file is somehow different on Mac, I would think you can basically just run it. You just need to tell DOSBox to load the appropriate configuration file when it launches the game. For the windows version, the shortcut does this; I assume one can make a similar type of shortcut on Mac.

Or is the problem with the GOG intsaller for the games, which I guess would only work on Windows?

Also, I wouldn't say that the Windows version is necessarily "download and launch". It will work that way, but I usually want to tweak sound settings and some graphics settings (mostly the window resolution so I can play in a window) before I run the games.

This is pretty simple.

If I download this on windows, I can click on an icon and it runs.
If I download this on a mac, I can't click on an icon and have it run.

If the game is already here, but not for platform X:
A. Technical difficulties
B. Legal issues

(sometimes c)

OK, I see what you mean now. But making that icon yourself is actually pretty easy, I think. Or at least it is in Windows. If it wasn't automatically made by GOG, then you would just create a shortcut and add a tag telling it to use the .conf file that GOG supplies. Then you can click on that shortcut and it runs.

I would guess something like that can be done on Mac. But what might be tricky is the GOG installer. This is a Windows installer that puts all the files in the right places and even installs DOSBox if one doesn't have it already, and also creates the .conf file you need. If that installer doesn't run on Mac, then it wouldn't be so easy to set it up to run yourself.

I know how dosbox works. It's not that simple.
If the only provided version of a game was a boxer-packaged dmg disk image for mac, it would NOT be a matter of creating a shorcut to launch it on windows. Or D, it hasn't been done yet.

Considering that platforms are being added all the time, D is pretty common.

True, but Mac has been supported for a while & the games have been here for a long time. I would be surprised if it's D in this case. You could always ask support.

Got it. Then I guess you'd have to contact support to see if there are any plans for a Mac version. You could also vote for it on the GOG wishlist.

Well, in the end this was a LOT easier than expected. It seems the Boxer developer has done all the work to support Might and Magic 1-5, the gog builds specifically.

I did have to download them on windows, install, scp to mac, then drag to boxer, but it was a lot less hassle than expected.

Which really prompts: why aren't these available for download already in that form? Surely they can be listed as "goodies" or similar, if MM6 is not so readily encoded.

I think it might be the fact that they can't do it without original publisher's permission. Or despite it being under "goodies" people will still demand GOG provides support for it.

They support a lot of other games on mac?

Yes, I wasn't clear. I meant they will demand Mac suport for MM6, since it's all one game in GOG's catalogue.

EDIT: Still it won't hurt to contact them and ask to provide the DOSBox ones for Mac.

Oh, yes, it's a bit awkward.

Really I don't know why they're all lumped together in this way. 6 seems to go with 7 8 to me.
As for asking I did that earlier, but I'm sure they won't read until work starts and many support requests are in the pile.


For what it's worth, people already have MM6 running OK in wine, but I accept that it's a larger support surface area. I'm certainly not motivated to bother with it.