Iggy Drougge asked if I could write a tutorial on how to emulate mobile games to have more people contribute entries and screenshots. This one is only for J2ME games. Most manufacturers have dev kits and frameworks with similar functions for different platforms, but they're quite complex to use. Emulating J2ME works fairly well because Java is platform independent.

There are different standalone programs that try to emulate it, but some such as GameMagic have lots of errors. The one I'm using here has never let me down so far.

Tools of the trade

• Midp2Exe
• Runtime library
• A J2ME game (has a .jar extension)
• Screenshot capture program (I use Hypersnap DX)

Off we go

1. First, unzip Midp2Exe and the runtime library in the same directory, along with your mobile game.
Next, create a shortcut to the Midp2Exe file. Right click on the original file and choose "Create a shortcut".
2. Right click on the shortcut and choose "Properties"
3. Where it reads "Target", you have to enter something similar to this: D:\Midp2Exe.exe -jar call.jar -out game.exe
In this case, D:\ is where are the files are located, call.jar is the game file and game.exe will be the file you want to end up with.
4. Click the shortcut and Midp2Exe will create the file game.exe, which includes both the game and the shell to emulate it. Just click and play.

A screenshot of what it looks like:



While playing, capture screenshots with an "active window" function in your screenshot grabber. You'll still need to cut them out. Each shot should have a 176x208 resolution and PNG is the way to go.

Happy contributing!

Fantastic information, thank you!

Thanks for the tutorial, I didn't even knew it was possible to make screenshots of a J2ME game. Thanks Sciere!

I'd say bonus point worthy. IMHO, of course.