mobile phone games help please

sammyw

Why do mobile phone games only work with some phones and not others? Can someone explain to me the difference please. I am trying to get some games from mobango for my daughters FLY phone and my hubbys samsung E250. My son has a Sony ericsson k500 and they all seem to work on his phone, but we're having trouble getting anything to work on the other 2.
What am I doing wrong? Or what should I do? Is it something to do with the file type? I thought that all java games had the same files?

C_Ronaldo

Not all games will work with all phones, you getting the game from a site, it should say what phones work with which games

Cricri

You are quite correct that Java applications are platform independent. The device runs a virtual machine, and what you install is a pre-compiled binary which should be compatible with all devices.
Unfortunately, I myself ran into several kind of problems when trying to run Java games on some phones:
1 - most commonly, the mobile phone will ONLY allow to install games via the Web (e.g. WAP or GPRS). Trying to copy files on the card, via IR or Bluetooth will result in an error message saying that the file type is unknown
2 - Java applications are typically designed to run at a specific resolution. If your screen is a different size, the video ouput might be trunked or corrupted
3 - Even if both previous issues are not applicable, controls are also often hard coded. If your phone has different codes for the keys, you'll be unable to run the games.

If you want to test these games on a PC before attempting to run them on a mobile phone, I recommend mpowerplayer:
http://mpowerplayer.com/

thor

Cricri wrote: »

You are quite correct that Java applications are platform independent. The device runs a virtual machine, and what you install is a pre-compiled binary which should be compatible with all devices.
Unfortunately, I myself ran into several kind of problems when trying to run Java games on some phones:
1 - most commonly, the mobile phone will ONLY allow to install games via the Web (e.g. WAP or GPRS). Trying to copy files on the card, via IR or Bluetooth will result in an error message saying that the file type is unknown

This is the problem I have come across trying to install games on my samsung d800. No matter if I transfer the game from my pc or via Wap the .jar and .jad files will always produce an unknown error.
I genuinely think that this phone will never play any games that did not come with it initially.

Cricri

It probably can, if you download and install it from a specialised web site:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=samsung+d800+games
It will cost you a premium though.
This is one of the reasons why I've stuck to s60 phones in the last few years: I can always download and install whatever I want manually.
*EDIT* btw, you should send both jad and jar file, then try executing the jad file.

thor

Cricri wrote: »

It probably can, if you download and install it from a specialised web site:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=samsung+d800+games
It will cost you a premium though.
This is one of the reasons why I've stuck to s60 phones in the last few years: I can always download and install whatever I want manually.
*EDIT* btw, you should send both jad and jar file, then try executing the jad file.

I had downloaded both jad and jar failes to no avail.
If I have to go to a website and pay for the games then it's not worth the bother. It just perplexes me that there are plenty of websites with free java games supposedly for the d800 but they do not work when I download them via wap.