ChromeOS users already have access to many Android games through Google Play, but many of them are built with a touchscreen interface. This can make it difficult for users to play these titles using a keyboard and mouse. To address this issue, Google announced today that with ChromeOS 105, it’s testing keyboard controls for select titles.
The company said it simulates touch controls by pressing the keyboard to map touchscreen controls to a desktop system. He also insisted that developers should deploy keyboard controls in their games to work better on non-touchscreen Chromebooks.
“By converting keystrokes into simulated touch events, the Game Control feature allows players to use their keyboard to interact with on-screen buttons and virtual joysticks, resulting in a significantly improved experience for games with limited or no touch support.” keyboard,” the company said in a blog post.
If you’re using ChromeOS 105 on a device with a keyboard and mouse (or touchpad), you’ll see a keyboard overlay denoting controls that will simulate touch behavior in a supported game. With this release, users will be able to disable/enable the keyboard overlay, disable game controls, and customize the control keys in a game (accessible via the settings box located on the right-center of the screen). They can still use the mouse to access in-game menus and dialogs.
ChromeOS Android Gaming Keyboard Control Test Image Credits: Google
For the initial phase, Google is focusing on four types of games that will support keyboard controls: joystick, one-button games, multi-button games, and drag games. Here is the list of supported games at launch:
Joystick games
- shooter
- AXES.io
- Heroics Epic Legend of Archero
- Wizard Legend: Fighting Master
- Pixel Blade R – Revolution
- Zombero: Archero Hero Shooter
- Archer Hunter – Offline action adventure game
- Mr. Autofire
One button games
- Geometry Dash Lite
- Stack Ball – Crash Platforms
- Fireballs 3D
- Stack Smash
- Drop Stack Ball – Fall Helix Blast Crash 3D
- Helix Smash
- Stack Crush Ball
- Crush Stack Ball Blast
- Dropping the stack
- Helix Stack Jump: Smash Ball
- Tap Titans 2
Games with many buttons
- Hill races
- Ninja Arashi 2
- Ninja Arashi
- Ninja warrior: legend of adventure games
- Power Hover
- Grimvalor
Dragging games
- 2048 (Androbaby)
- 2048 Original
- 2048 (Solebon LLC)
- 2048 number puzzle
- 2048 (S2Apps)
Google cautioned that this is an alpha version of keyboard support, so users shouldn’t expect all Google Play games to work perfectly on ChromeOS. Plus, given that this is an early experiment by the company, supported games may also encounter some issues while using the keyboard controls.
The company said that in the future it plans to make an editor that can easily let you map keyboard and mouse controls to touch-enabled Google Play games.
Google has been trying to expand gaming on ChromeOS for a while now. The company was officially launched Steam to the platform in March with limited game support. It also tries to make Android games desktop-ready. It started last month Google Play Games for PC in open beta for Windows users in five countries.