Chrome OS can turn keystrokes into touchscreen game controls

Google gives Chrome OS 105 a feature to use keystrokes for controls in games made for touchscreens. That should make playing those games easier. That works with an overlay in the game.

The feature is in alpha and will work on a limited number of games at that stage, says Google. It is mainly intended for Android games. They have been working on Chrome OS for several years, but are often not made to function with a keyboard and touchpad, the input methods on many Chrome OS devices. The overlay should solve that.

That overlay comes into play in the game and shows which keys will cause certain actions. The software then converts the keystrokes into actions that the game sees as touchscreen input. This method eliminates the need for game developers to modify their code to make it work on Chrome OS.

Users can designate keys themselves to perform actions. This mainly involves simulating swiping on the touchscreen, says Google. The feature is in Chrome OS 105. The plan is to expand the feature to more games and more types of controls later on.

Overlay in ChromeOS 105 with game controls