ParlorControls and the HUD
A running game shows three things: the picture, a row of small pills along the top, and — on iPhone and iPad without a controller — touch controls underneath.
Touch controls
Each system gets its own cluster:
- Game Boy / Game Boy Color — D-pad, B and A, Start and Select.
- Game Boy Advance — adds L and R shoulders.
- Nintendo DS — adds X and Y.
- Nintendo 3DS — adds ZL, ZR and an analog circle pad.
The cluster scales with the window and shrinks in Slide Over. On iPhone every press has a haptic tick (Settings → Haptics while playing). Touch controls hide automatically the moment a controller or hardware keyboard connects; use the Hide controls / Show controls pill to override that.
Button placement, size and opacity aren't adjustable in this version.
The HUD pills
Left to right, as they apply to your device. The strip scrolls sideways if it overflows a narrow screen.
| Pill | What it does |
|---|---|
| Keyboard glyph | Opens the live keyboard keymap (only with a hardware keyboard) |
| Controller glyph (green) | Opens the live pad keymap for the connected controller |
| Hide controls / Show controls | Toggles the touch cluster |
| Full-screen glyph | Mac only — enters and leaves full screen |
| Layout glyph | DS and 3DS only — opens the screen layout panel |
| Mute / Unmute | Silences audio without pausing; forgotten when you quit |
| Fast | Toggles fast forward at your chosen speed |
| Save | Quick-saves to the quick slot |
| Load | Loads the quick slot |
| Pause glyph | Opens the pause menu |
On the Mac the pills and the mouse cursor fade out after about two and a half seconds without mouse movement, and come back as soon as you move it.
Toasts
Short messages slide in at the top with a thumbnail where it helps: State saved, State loaded, No quick save yet, and on launch, Continue where you left off? with a Resume button when there's an auto-state from the last time you left.
Gestures and shortcuts
- Two-finger double-tap the game on a DS or 3DS title to swap the two screens.
- Menu + Options together on a controller opens the pause menu; so does Start + Select on the touch cluster's equivalents.
- Esc on a keyboard opens the pause menu; Tab fast-forwards while held; F1 / F2 quick save and load. See Controllers and keyboards.
Leaving a game
Backgrounding Parlor, closing the Mac window, or choosing Quit writes the battery save and an auto-state first. On the Mac, ⌘Q waits for those writes to finish before the app is allowed to exit — you won't lose the last thirty seconds.