beta124.01

You can now play the game from your PC: with the PC's keyboard, or with a controller plugged into the PC. It is in the PC app (pcconnect_app.py), on a new row under the save buttons:

Game input | Player | A/B by label | HOME | Screenshot | Album | Record

Take pc_app.zip from this release and unpack it into one folder. It holds the app's files: pcconnect_app.py, pcconnect_files.py, pcconnect_album.py, pcconnect.py, and pcconnect_app.bat, which starts the app with a double click.

The last three buttons take pictures; they are described further down.

Before you start

• Breeze has to keep running while the game is on screen. That needs the HOME daemon with the Home toggle on Keep or Overlay.
• PC connect has to be on (Settings > PC connect).
• Nothing else is installed on the Switch.

Playing from the PC

1. Start the game, and open the PC app.
2. If Breeze is on screen, press Hide (or HOME) so the game is in front.
3. Tick Game input.

The text beside the buttons shows what is connected, for example game input: player 1, controller 1.

With a controller on the PC (any Xbox-style one that Windows games see):

• Sticks, D-pad, shoulder buttons and triggers are what you expect. Back is MINUS, Start is PLUS, the Guide button is HOME.
• The four face buttons go by where they are: the bottom button is the Switch's B, the right one is A. Tick A/B by label if you would rather have the button marked A be A.
• It works even when the app's window is not the one in front.

With the keyboard (click on the app's window first):

A key stays down for as long as you hold it. A mouse click on the picture is a touch on the game's screen.

Untick Game input when you are done.

Screenshots, the album and recording

These work with or without Game input, and keep their pictures in a folder for the game on your PC. It is the folder the file manager calls Game directory (title name): named after the game, inside Breeze games in your home folder unless you picked another base folder in Files....

• Screenshot, or the F12 key, saves what is on the Switch's screen right now into album in that folder. The bottom line of the window says where it went.
• Album opens those pictures as a window of small pictures, newest first. Double-click one to open it. Select several with Ctrl or Shift. Press Delete to remove them.
• Drag pictures out of the Album to put them somewhere else: a folder in Explorer, a chat, the reply box of a forum page.
• Record keeps every picture the app receives for as long as it is ticked, with a list of what was pressed and when, in record in the same folder. It is a few pictures a second, not a video. Its use is looking back afterwards for the moment something happened; an AI assistant that helps you make a cheat can read a recording, where it could never watch the game live.

In the file manager you can now also drag files out of the right-hand (PC) panel into Explorer or another program.

Good to know

• Your own controller stops working in the game while the box is ticked. A game for one player listens to player 1 only, so the PC takes player 1 and your controller becomes player 2. Unticking the box gives it back.
• If you want both to play -- a game for two -- set Player to 2 and your controller stays player 1.
• While Breeze is on screen, the keyboard and controller drive Breeze's menus through the same route. Hide Breeze to reach the game.
• HOME works with the box ticked or not. With a game running it sends a full-screen Breeze behind the game, or brings it back.
• A controller that Windows games do not see as an Xbox controller (a PlayStation or Switch one plugged straight into the PC) is not picked up. Steam and similar tools can make it look like one.
• The picture in the app is a few frames a second; it is there to see where you are, not to play by. Watch the Switch or the TV.

Touching the game's screen with the mouse, and coming back after the Switch has slept, have not been tried yet.