Play the Playtest Table With the Keyboard

Product Update · 5 min read · By Chitmunk Team · October 24, 2026

The Chitmunk playtest table now works without a mouse. Press Tab, then Enter on the Skip to table link (the first stop on the page) to reach the table, use the arrow keys to move between pieces, press Enter for a piece's actions and Space to pick it up and drop it. A screen reader hears every piece and every move, and a face-down card is never named.

It came out in version 0.36.0. Nothing changes for people who play with a mouse: drag, right-click and double-click all work as before.

Why a keyboard table matters to a designer

A playtest is only as good as the people at the table. If the table needs a mouse, you lose some of them before the first card is drawn.

• Testers who cannot use a mouse. Someone who navigates by keyboard or listens through a screen reader can now sit in, draw, play and tell you what they think. That is a group of players most prototypes never hear from.
• A tester on a laptop trackpad. Dragging a card across a busy table with two fingers is fiddly. Arrows and Space are quicker, and nothing slips off the edge.
• A classroom. A teacher at a projector, students on shared laptops, a game on the board: keys that do the same thing every time are easier to call out than "now drag the second card a bit to the left".

More people at the table means more honest feedback, sooner. That is the whole point of a playtest.

What a turn feels like

Open your game, go to the Playtest stage and start the table. Press Tab once and Enter on Skip to table. You hear what is on the table. Press the arrow keys and a focus ring jumps to the nearest piece in that direction, the way your eyes would move across a real table.

Land on your deck and press D to draw. Press Tab again and you are in your hand, which has its own stop after the table. Arrow to a card, press P, and it goes onto the table face up.

To move a piece, press Space to pick it up, the arrow keys to carry it, and Space again to put it down. Changed your mind halfway? Escape puts it back where it was. For everything else (flip, rotate, lock, shuffle, return to deck) press Enter and choose from the piece's actions menu. Press ? at any time to see every shortcut.

The keys

These are the ones you will use most. The Playtest Simulator guide has the full list.

What a screen reader hears

Each piece is read with its name, what it is, its state and its place on the table. A face-up card sounds like "Fireball, card, face up, 3 of 12". A card in your hand sounds like "Fireball, card, 2 of 5 in your hand".

After each action you hear one short line, such as "Drew 1. Hand: 1 card" after a draw. What other players do is read too, at most one line every two seconds for each of them, so it never drowns out your own turn.

A face-down card is never named. Not in its label, not in the game log, not in a menu, and not to the other players in an online playtest. You hear "Face-down card, 3 of 12", and another player's hand reads as "Card, 1 of 4 in Player 2's hand". If you peek at a card, the name is spoken to you alone. A hidden card stays hidden, which matters a lot in a game about bluffing.

One tip: use focus mode (forms mode) on the table, so the letter keys reach the game instead of your screen reader.

Shortcuts that stay out of the way

Single letters like D and F only act while the table or your hand has focus, so typing feedback in a text box never draws a card by accident.

If your screen reader uses those keys itself, open Settings and turn off Single-key shortcuts. The letter, number, +, - and Delete keys go quiet. The arrows, Enter, Space, Escape and ? keep working, and every action is still in the Enter menu.

Move to, for a mouse or a finger too

A piece's actions menu now has Move to…. It puts a card on top of a pile, sets a piece beside a pile, drops it into a drop area or sends it back to the table centre. No dragging, no aiming.

It was built for the keyboard, but it helps anyone. On a tablet, dragging a card onto a small pile with a fingertip is hit and miss. A couple of taps in the menu are not.

Online playtests

All of this works in online playtests. You can play by keyboard while your friends use a mouse, and players still on the previous version of Chitmunk can sit at the same table, because what the table sends between players did not change. Which plans include online playtests is on the pricing page.

How we built it

The table is still painted on a canvas, which a screen reader cannot see into. So over it sits an invisible list with one entry per piece, each placed exactly over the piece it stands for. The keyboard and the screen reader work with that list, and the canvas keeps drawing what you see. Every keyboard move then goes through the same commands a mouse move does, which is why undo, the game log and the other players in an online game all see exactly the same thing either way. We checked it with an automated walk through a whole turn by keyboard and an accessibility scan of the table that finds nothing to fix.