Drink the Ocean Controls for PC and Mobile

Drink the Ocean uses a compact control scheme: a small set of keys, the mouse for looking and drinking, and a touch layout on phones. This page lists the inputs that are published for the Playgama version of the game, then covers the fixes that solve most control problems.

Desktop controls

Action	Input
Move	W, A, S, D
Look around	Mouse
Drink through the straw	Left click
Jump	Space
Switch tools	1, 2, 3
Go home	T
Open the Sky Duck’s gifts	E
Settings	P
Free the mouse cursor	Tab

A few practical notes:

• Left click is the straw. You do not need to hold a separate drink key on desktop; clicking is what pulls water in.
• The mouse is captured by the game. Moving the mouse turns the camera, so the cursor disappears into the scene. That is normal.
• Tab frees the cursor. If you need to click a browser control, a second monitor, or the game’s own menu, press Tab first.

Mobile and touch controls

The game is listed for PC, Android, and iOS, and is designed for landscape orientation. On a phone or tablet:

• Move and look with the on-screen touch controls.
• Hold the DRINK button to keep drinking. This is the one input the developer documents explicitly for phones.
• Use the rest of the touch overlay for the other actions: jumping, switching tools, gifts, home, and settings.

Because the layout is built for landscape, rotate your device before you start. The game still runs in portrait, but the play area is much smaller and the touch targets crowd together.

Switching tools

Tools are mapped to 1, 2, and 3 on desktop. The useful habit is to switch deliberately rather than leaving the starting tool equipped forever: different tools move water at different rates, and the difference is easiest to feel over a full belly-filling trip.

On mobile, use the tool buttons on the touch overlay. The same rule applies — try each one for a full trip before deciding which to keep.

The Sky Duck, settings, and going home

Three inputs are easy to forget because they sit outside the main loop:

• E opens the Sky Duck’s gifts. The duck’s boons are worth collecting whenever they appear.
• P opens settings, where you can adjust the game’s own options.
• T takes you home. Use it if you get turned around on the seabed.

On mobile, the same actions live on the touch overlay.

Fixing common control problems

The keyboard does nothing

Click once inside the game area first. Browsers give keyboard focus to the page, not to an embedded frame, until you interact with it. If the game still ignores input, reload the game with the Restart button under the player.

The mouse will not come back

Press Tab to release the cursor. If that does not work, press Esc to leave fullscreen, then Tab again. On a laptop with a trackpad, the same inputs apply.

Fullscreen will not start

Fullscreen is a browser feature, not a game feature. Some mobile browsers do not allow an element to go fullscreen at all. If the button reports that fullscreen is unavailable, rotate the phone to landscape and use the browser’s own fullscreen option instead.

Touch controls are hard to hit

Rotate to landscape and, if your browser supports it, hide the address bar by scrolling slightly. The game’s touch layout is designed around a wide screen, so portrait makes every button smaller.

Related reading

If the controls are working and you want to make faster progress, read how to drain the ocean faster — it covers the salt loop, upgrade order, and when to pull the plug. You can also jump straight into the game.

Sources checked

• Drink the Ocean on Playgama — control details and supported devices checked on 14 November 2026.