A Golden Wake - A brief tutorial on getting the overlay to work with a game that it is disabled on by default.
For those who are interested in tinkering a bit to try to see if they can get the overlay to work with some games it does not work with by default, I am sharing some configuration tips in this post that will help to get some games to work that the overlay does not work with by default due to it being disabled. These tips may or may not help with getting other games to work as well. The overlay just will not ever work with some games due to the nature of how the games were programmed back in the day, with very old games being the ones least likely to ever work. Even if the overlay does work, there are situations where it might not work that well by default such as games that have a very low screen resolution. GOG may have possibly disabled the overlay on some games by default due to this rather than providing an ugly overlay user interface in low resolution for example.
In general, if a game uses DirectX 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or OpenGL then there is a chance that it might work automatically, or that it might be able to work if the game's Galaxy configuration is tweaked slightly to enable the overlay and other options.
It is important to note that enabling the overlay on a game where GOG currently has it disabled by default may cause the game to be unable to start at all, or may cause it to crash or experience other instability either seemingly randomly, or while using the overlay functionality. In some cases you might enter the overlay and be unable to exit the overlay or lose control of the mouse and/or keyboard and be stuck there. USE AT OWN RISK. GOG Galaxy Game Configuration Files Every GOG game which is either installed using Galaxy, or which is installed manually by using the standalone game installers which have already been enhanced with Galaxy integration support will install a special Galaxy configuration file for that game. The file exists in the directory that the game was installed into and has a filename of "goggame-123456789.info" where 123456789 is a special game-ID code that GOG has assigned that particular game. You can try to locate this file by going to the directory where the game is installed using your file explorer, where you should see it listed among the files. Windows by default hides the file extensions of known file types so you may not see the ".info" file extension unless you have disabled this Windows feature.
The example I am using in this tutorial is for the adventure game
A Golden Wake by Wadjet Games, which has the overlay disabled by default out of the box. I have installed the game to "E:\GOG Games\A Golden Wake" on my system, and in that directory the Galaxy configuration file for this game is named
goggame-1207666213.info. These are text configuration files in the format known as JSON for those familiar with it. Discussing the details of JSON is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but those interested in learning more on their own can find more information at this
Wikipedia article on JSON.
JSON files have a rather strict syntax and are unforgiving of typographical errors or missing punctuation, so it is a good idea to make a backup copy of the file before editing it. The GOG supplied files are machine generated in many cases by the looks of it, so they're not all formatted in the nicest manner for human eyeballs. In order to make them more readable, and to ensure you are less likely to make a typo or other error, it is a good idea to paste the file into
http://jsonlint.com first and fix any typos or other errors you may have made.
Here is the cleaned up stock config file for A Golden Wake, otherwise unmodified:
{
"gameId": "1207666213",
"rootGameId": "1207666213",
"dependencyGameId": "",
"language": "english",
"name": "A Golden Wake",
"playTasks": [{
"isPrimary": true,
"type": "FileTask",
"path": "a-golden-wake.exe",
"workingDir": ""
}, {
"name": "Configuration tool",
"type": "FileTask",
"path": "winsetup.exe",
"workingDir": ""
}],
"supportTasks": [{
"name": "Support",
"type": "URLTask",
"link": "
http://www.gog.com/en/support/a_golden_wake"
}]
}
After experimentation I have managed to get the overlay working with this game by changing the file as follows:
{
"gameId": "1207666213",
"rootGameId": "1207666213",
"dependencyGameId": "",
"language": "english",
"name": "A Golden Wake",
"overlaySupported": true, "playTasks": [{
"isPrimary": true,
"type": "FileTask",
"path": "a-golden-wake.exe",
"category":"game", "workingDir": ""
}, {
"name": "Configuration tool",
"type": "FileTask",
"path": "winsetup.exe",
"workingDir": ""
}],
"supportTasks": [{
"name": "Support",
"type": "URLTask",
"link": "
http://www.gog.com/en/support/a_golden_wake"
}]
}
There are two changes present above which I have highlighted in bold. If either one or both of these are missing, the overlay will not work with this game:
"overlaySupported": true, "category":"game", Make absolutely sure that these are inserted in the right section, and a comma appears on the end of the line above them if one isn't there already. You can try this trick with other games as well and it may or may not work. As I mentioned previously, keep in mind that some games may crash or otherwise become unstable if the overlay is forcibly enabled like this. A game might work fine for an hour and suddenly at random when you turn the overlay on it may freeze or have another problem.
This is the wild, wild, west! You have been warned! When reporting whether or not a game works with the overlay here in this thread, if you had to modify the goggame-*.info file in order to get the overlay to work, please specify this in your post, and copy and paste the entire goggame-*.info file into your message after first cleaning it up through http://jsonlint.com so that others can use it as well. I will make a note for games that require this and hyperlink them to the thread post which contains special instructions for the given game. Now go have some fun trying to get more games to work. :)
