Keep the clues
We record where a game came from, which exact release we have, what phone it expected, and what we actually observed. A familiar title is not enough. Tiny version differences can change the whole adventure.
The tiny field guide
How to rescue a game without losing its little soul.
An old mobile game is not a lonely file waiting for someone to double-click it. It is a tiny performer with a preferred stage, a favorite set of buttons, and a surprising number of opinions about sound. We keep the clues that let it feel like itself.
Back to the archive tour01 / The rescue mission
Find the file. Find everything around it.
Rebuild the room
The screen, keypad, sound, operating system, runtime, and settings all matter. We rebuild the conditions around the game so a future player can understand what made that version feel right.
Tell the truth
Every record shows what is known, what is guessed, what is blocked, and what needs one more clue. A little uncertainty is much healthier than a confident wrong answer wearing a tiny hat.
02 / Two kinds of old-phone magic
JAR plus JAD, or native Symbian.
Java ME / J2ME
The game and its tiny instruction card
A Java ME game usually arrives as a JAR plus a JAD. We keep both, along with the phone and runtime settings, because the game may be wonderfully picky about its home.
Native Symbian
The game and its whole habitat
A native Symbian game may arrive as SIS or SISX and depend on a particular phone, operating system, firmware, or signing setup. Same pocket, different species of problem.
03 / The sharing rules
Open tools. Careful little doors.
We can share our maps, notes, public evidence, and preservation tools. We do not put commercial game files, phone firmware, music, art, or manuals into a public download pile just because we found them. Those stay separate until we know what the rights allow.
The goal is not to make every file available to everyone. The goal is to help the right people play, study, and love these games without pretending that permission is a decorative sticker.
04 / Bring your weird little clue
The detail that seems tiny may be the thing that saves the day.
Have a phone note, a release detail, a correction, a rights answer, or a memory that sounds too specific to matter? Those are exactly the clues an archive loves. Bring them along when the project contribution path is ready for you.
See how to join in