Is it really necessary to first install and copy from a Windows machine?

I never had any issues using WINE to install GOG games, but maybe running WINE on a Mac is not as easy now as it was back when I did that on a x86 Mac?

I always run the GOG installer in WINE and then copy the game into my git repo for DOS stuff, make sure the game works, git commit it, and then I know it will always just work and I will not have to think about that again (plus I can version manage all settings and save-games for all the games and also sync between my different machines without relying on any cloud service).

I wouldn’t be surprised if 7-zip can extract the files from the installer if the installer is not a custom thing.

You could use heroic launcher to install the game, and then run it through the DOSBox you manually installed.

Or run the installer in Wine/Proton.

Hmm i guess this would require figuring out how to extract game data from an .exe installer GOG distributes. I guess AI would figure it out in like 3 minutes ;) I’ll check later.

You could try https://github.com/dscharrer/innoextract (installable via homebrew).

I wondered if innoextract was Linux only, but I see there is a homebrew formula. https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/innoextract

Is the author reading hackernews?

That, or just run it with wine.

Interestingly, wine works on Apple Silicon via Rosetta2 so I guess it won't work by macOS 28, and we will be only left with arm64 DOSBox-X.

... and arm64 innoextract hopefully

There was a tool that would take a GOG installer and extract it.

https://www.macsourceports.com/utility/extractor