Cloud-based game streaming is purported to be the next point of focus for tech innovation, with major players like Microsoft, Sony, NVIDIA, and Google gearing up to provide a way to seamlessly play and experience games without a focus on hardware. Google Stadia gets a chunk of attention in this space, mainly because of Google's name behind it. Reception on Stadia has been quite mixed, notwithstanding the fact that a lot of people could not even use Stadia without needing root or Xposed modules. Only recently did Stadia extend support to more devices beyond Google Pixels, namely those in the Samsung Galaxy S series, Samsung Galaxy Note series and gaming phones like Razer Phone series and ASUS ROG Phone series. While you can play with Stadia on these devices, you still need a wired controller for playing games, which in turn affects how easily and where you can game. If you were itching for an alternative that would make Stadia much more accessible, check out TouchStadia -- a JavaScript snippet that adds on-screen controls for playing Stadia on Android!

TouchStadia is a JavaScript snippet that needs to be manually loaded into Google Chrome for Android. Once loaded in, users can access Stadia and play games using on-screen controls. This massively lowers the accessibility and convenience barrier for Stadia, as you no longer need a wired controller to play games. You don't need to install any additional apps or mods for this -- TouchStadia works off as a Google Chrome extension on Desktop, but since Google Chrome for Android does not support extensions, you just have to manually paste the snippet code into Chrome every time you want to stream a game. There's also support for joysticks -- just drag your finger across on the sides where there are no buttons to activate the joystick action.

Granted, using on-screen controls is an inferior experience to using a dedicated hardware controller. But having the option itself is a massive plus point, and Google failed to provide this option. Imposing limitations was the theme around Stadia's rollout, so this wasn't entirely surprising.

If you would like to try out TouchStadia, follow along the instructions on GitHub. You can provide feedback to the developer in the TouchStadia Reddit Thread.