The N-Gage Application

With a user interface that resembles Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, at the top of the N-Gage launcher there are five icons that can be navigated through by simply pressing left and right on the phone’s thumb pad. These represent your games library, profile, friends list, and the showroom - all as explained thoroughly below.

Home
The launcher welcomes the user with a Home screen where the last game played is shown along with some quick links to your friends, progress (score table), the Featured Game that Nokia wants to "highlight" for this week, and your Inbox for messaging within the launcher.

My Games
This screen shows all the games that are currently installed on the phone - be it a Trial version or the full game (purchased or rented). The ones that are trial versions have a pink stripe that says "TRIAL" to the far right of the game icon, overlapping what looks somewhat like a battery meter that, once you pay for the game, illustrates your progress with that game. At the bottom of the list of installed games is a quick link (Get More Games) that takes you to the showroom.
Games that are not paid for will show a pop-up every time you play it - asking whether you’d like to try the free trial or either purchase, enter an unlock code (purchased or given through promotions), or rent the game. More on this below.
From this screen, the user may also rate any of the games downloaded from 1 to 5 stars, as well as write a small verdict on it.

My Profile
The next tab is your profile which shows how many N-Gage points you’ve scored so far from playing, your reputation level (ranging between 1-5 stars), the number of friends you have enlisted, and your chosen avatar/picture to represent you (will display a white silhouette of a person with an orange background per default). Further down is your current status (offline, online or away - the last two can each be assigned with a personal message), N-Gage Point Level, and a list of what games you have played (Gaming History). Selecting one will not only display how many points you’ve gathered within the chosen game - but also show how well your friends are doing with the same game. From here, users are also able to look at what achievements have been unlocked - or Point Pickups as they’re called.

My Friends
This is where you go to add a friend to your friends list as well as check them all out. Once highlighted, you may choose to view recent conversations with the player, send them a message, view his or her profile, and rate the player. Messages can be sent regardless of whether the player is currently online or not and your friends list can be sorted by name, availability/status, or N-Gage points gathered.

Showroom
The Showroom displays all games that are available for download as well as Game Extras for expanding a game with extra content, such as downloading new episodes/adventures for the adventure game Dirk Dagger. Games may be browsed by genre, latest arrivals, or just in alphabetical order. Select a game and you’re able to read a small (though maybe not very informative) description of it along with details on how big it is, estimated time for downloading the game, the number of supported players, who the publisher is etc. Here you may also read what other players think of the game and view their ratings.
Payment can be made by either using a credit card or paying through the phone bill (network operator). Apart from actually purchasing a game, there’s also an option of renting one - where you only need to pay a few euro or dollars in order to get full access for a limited time of either 24 hours or a whole week. When purchased, the games are tied to the user’s account and can be re-downloaded if deleted for some reason.
Games can be downloaded directly to the phone over the air (by GPRS or WiFi), or the user may choose to download it to a computer and then install it onto the phone using a USB-cable and Nokia PC Suite.

Awards
Several of the N-Gage 2.0 games were nominated for International Mobile Gaming Awards in 2007. Two out of three N-Gage 2.0 titles received an award:[10]
ONE by Digital Legends
won the Best 3D award
Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol by Jadestone
won the Best Gameplay award
Hooked On: Creatures of the Deep by Infinite Dreams
was nominated for Best Gameplay but did not receive the award
On May 8th 2008, Hooked On: Creatures of the Deep won a Games Award during the 2008 Meffy Awards in Cannes [11].

Future of N-Gage
In an interview that Pocket Gamer had with Jaakko Kaidesoja (head of New Experience, Nokia Play) on February 21st 2008, Jakko revealed that there would be "25 to 30 games released by the middle of the year" and "50 to 60 games released by the end of the year" (ideally)[12]. Nokia is currently working with game developers such as Vivendi, EA, Capcom and Gameloft only to mention a few.
In an interview that NokNok had with head of N-Gage first party games production of North America, Will Shen talked about some of the possibilities that N-Gage games can have going forward[13]:
"Shen also stated that Nokia is seriously looking at location-based gaming via GPS, but level-headedly emphasizing that the 'focus is on innovation', and not gimmick gaming. Similarly, he echoed last week’s news of plans for touchscreen N-Gage gaming and even the possibility of first and third-party accelerometer-based games for Nseries devices with the capability."
Nokia held a presentation at GDC 2008[14] where spokesman Dan Scott, Global Head of Production - Nokia Games Publishing, had this to say on multiplayer gaming:
"We're going to be exploiting the capabilities of the N-Gage arena; more multiplayer gaming. As the networks become more capable, we're going to work in more real-time multiplayer. As soon as it's ready we'll be there. We're gonna be pushing the boundaries on that, we're going to be looking at MMOs."