Touch/pen compatibility with games

Question

Touch/pen compatibility with games

Anonymous

I've noticed some strange issues using a pen or touch on my Surface Pro 3 in some games (old and new) that normally function with a mouse.

Some games work fine, like Settlers 4, Sim City 4 & 2013, and Anno 1404 & 2070. I can even play WarCraft 3 and StarCraft 2 with the Surface Pen as if it were a mouse, no problem (don't worry, I know it's a diminished experience, but I enjoy playing games on the couch with my tablet).

Yet other games have some kind of flaw that makes them utterly unplayable without a mouse. I've seen it in Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, Halfway, Homeworld, and Cities: Skylines. These games, having point-and-click interfaces, should work just fine with a pen or touch, but whenever you touch the screen in these games, the game fails to recognize taps as mouse clicks, or causes the camera to just spin around wildly.

Has anyone else noticed this problem? Are there pen/touch drivers that might rectify it? Or is it just going to be luck of the draw that a game will work on a touch screen (since none of these were likely designed with tablets in mind)?

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Answer 1

Surprised that more people aren't commenting. I've noticed the same thing and it would be really nice if we could get some sort of option to have the pen/touch behave more like a mouse in games.

There are so many games that would work great with touch that are hindered by whatever is causing this weird behavior.