Nokia Opens N-Gage To Homemade Game Developers

Nokia on Thursday rolled out a new tool that allows players to create their own games for the phone maker's N-Gage mobile phone game service.

Using Yamake, developed by Nokia Games Publishing, players can add their own content to different mini games, then play the games and share them with friends and others in the Yamake community, according to Nokia. Players can add content like text, pictures, sound clips, and movies from their mobile device or desktop computer.

"This is exactly what the future of mobile gaming should be about - creating games that you love and want to play, then sharing them with other players," said Mark Ollila, who heads Nokia Games Publishing, in a statement.

Some examples of games that players can create with Yamake include picture puzzles and quizzes. The games can be shared through multimedia messages between N-Gage compatible phones and other devices based on the S60 platform.

Nokia is finally getting N-Gage underway, which was off to a shaky start. Nokia delayed the launch of its gaming service in November due to some software testing issues.

But this month, Nokia began the initial roll-out of N-Gage on its N81 phones in anticipation of the commercial launch later in the year, said a Nokia spokeswoman. The company also launched a beta of "Share on Ovi" -- a social networking site for sharing photos and videos -- using the technology it acquired from a company called Twango.

Nokia announced its entry into the content services market last year with a revamped product under the brand name Ovi. In addition to N-Gage, Ovi offers other mobile services such as music and maps.