If you want shortcuts for your GOG Galaxy games, make sure you have the "create shortcut on desktop" option checked in the Downloads tab in Galaxy's settings. If you didn't do that before installing a game, or accidentally deleted a shortcut, here's how to create one after the fact.
This is the easiest option in my opinion, especially if you already have nother GOG game's shortcut on your desktop. Just copy and paste any existing shortcut on your desktop, either by right clicking on it and choosing copy, using CTRL-C and CTRL-V, or right-click dragging to an empty space and choosing "Copy here".
Right click on the desktop and choose New > Shortcut. In the first step of the wizard, either paste the file location from Step 2 below, or browse to find GalaxyClient.exe in your GOG Galaxy folder in the Program Files directory.
Here's where these shortcuts differ from creating a shortcut from the game's executable. Updating the target using the values below enables GOG Galaxy to launch first, then launch the game, giving you the benefit of cloud saves and the in-game overlay.
Right click the shortcut and click Properties, then fill in the following values on the Shortcut tab:
- Target:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\GalaxyClient.exe" /command=runGame /gameId=%GAME_ID% /path="%GAME_PATH%" - Start in:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy"
You will need to replace %GAME_ID% and %GAME_PATH% with the correct values for your game. You can grab the game ID from many places, but the easiest place I've found is the __support directory within the game's directory in your GOG Galaxy directory. There should be one folder in __support, and it's name is the game's ID.
In my case, for Witcher 3, the Target property looks like this with the values all filled in:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\GalaxyClient.exe" /command=runGame /gameId=1495134320 /path="C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt GOTY"
Note: If you'd like Galaxy to open but not start the game, replace runGame with launch. This will open Galaxy to the game's page, but not start it.
Before closing the Properties window, click Change Icon and browse to the game's directory to find the icon. Choosing either a .ico or .exe file should work.
Click the General tab and change the name (first field in the window, next to the icon) to whatever tickles your fancy.
That's it! Click OK, and you're done and ready to play.
Sources:
Is there a way to do this, but for additional executables too?
This way it'll launch the default executable every time and i wish to launch an additional, non-default executable this way