All images in this article are from the internet, used only to illustrate the era. Copyright belongs to the original authors. The stories are all my own real memories.
This is not a review, and it's not a recommendation. It's a personal memory of a platform that once truly existed and now survives only as a shadow in emulators. For readers in English-speaking countries, this is probably a piece of internet archaeology from a parallel world.
I first brought this up with a friend online. He said he'd come across many platforms, but had never heard of Bubble Games. That surprised me, and it's partly why I decided to write this memory down.
When people talk about internet memories, many think first of dial-up. But in China there was a period when many people's internet memories came from a game platform on shanzhai phones — Bubble Games.
Shanzhai phones could suddenly go online, and that itself was an accidental experience. They were very different from the regular armies like Nokia and iPhone. Back then many Chinese shanzhai phones were based on the MTK platform. We generally had no concept of specs. We thought a loud speaker, a touchscreen, long battery life, durability, a flashy look, and a low price were the biggest selling points — not whether the system was easy to use or how powerful the hardware was.
In 2009, Bubble Games was launched and operated by Sky Mobi, and it could run on these shanzhai feature phones. Many middle-aged migrant workers in rural areas couldn't afford a computer or a Nokia phone, but they still wanted to get online. All they had to do was type *#220807# into an off-brand phone and they could enter Bubble Games. You could use your SIM card's data to download all kinds of games, and there were even chat, web browsing, and music apps. You can think of Bubble Games as an app store.
My first phone that could go online wasn't a Nokia or an iPhone — it was a Changhong Hummer, a feature phone from a home appliance brand. Changhong no longer makes phones. Its selling points were low price, good quality, and long battery life. It was not a smartphone, cost less than about $150, and became the most popular phone in my small town.
There were two versions. The upgraded version could run J2ME (Java) games; the standard version didn't have that function but had a built-in Bubble Games entry, so you didn't need to type *#220807# to play. As a kid I didn't understand any of this. I thought the upgraded version couldn't play Bubble games and that downloading games was a hassle, so I chose the standard version without hesitation.
Back then mobile data cost 5 yuan for 30MB (about $0.70 at the time). Bubble games took up less than 1MB, and their graphics and gameplay were relatively simple, but they hold a lot of Chinese people's mobile internet memories.
The billing traps of that era, and users' cat-and-mouse games with them
Most of the games on Bubble were shanzhai works and ports from other platforms; only a small portion were original. They used an in-app purchase model — mainly selling game items.
I was in elementary school then. I really liked a shoot-'em-up game, even though it had a lot of shanzhai elements. I remember one level I could never get past. After failing, it offered to revive me immediately for 2 yuan (about $0.30), upgrade equipment for 5 yuan (about $0.70), or unlock the best equipment for 10 yuan (about $1.40). I really wanted to get past it and spent 10 yuan — but it only worked for one round. It wasn't a one-time purchase.
I also remember a side-scrolling action game. Its tutorial level drew me in, but then it said I needed to pay 2 yuan to unlock the next level. I didn't have much phone credit at the time. I wanted to choose "cancel payment," but another pop-up appeared asking me to confirm whether to pay. I didn't understand the trick back then. I didn't know that in Chinese grammar, a double negative means an affirmative. I thought I was choosing not to pay, but it turned out I paid. I saw "processing payment" and, to avoid the payment going through, I panicked, turned off the phone, and pulled the battery — but it was too late. After that, whenever this happened, I would turn off the phone or pull the battery in advance. Tech-savvy users back then had cracked the billing, but I never went through that. I could only use the dumb method to deal with the charges. The following method comes from the internet.
Change the phone's SMS center number to a specific overseas number. Among them, +447785012998 was a "code" almost everyone in player circles knew back then. It apparently stopped working later — of course, I only looked this up recently when recalling all this.
"Some readers might ask: what if I had chosen the upgraded Changhong Hummer back then? My dad used the upgraded version. It came with Plants vs. Zombies, and it didn't seem to charge via SMS — I vaguely remember it being charged through data traffic, but I'm not even sure. I just couldn't understand how a single-player game could cost me money at all. I also remember other off-brand feature phones that charged for Bluetooth transfers too, without clearly telling you, let alone having any payment password."
Back then, there was no payment password. Even if you complained to the carrier, as a kid, you had no way to get the money back. So pulling the battery was our only "physical defense."
Big fun on a small screen: Fantasy Three Kingdoms OL gave me a whole new experience
Before Bubble Games, I played FC and MD games on a compatible console. Because Chinese pirates often picked games with no save function, I thought every game had to start over from the beginning. But Fantasy Three Kingdoms OL gave me a whole new experience. It had a built-in save function — close the game and open it again, and your progress was still there. For me, used to "starting from scratch every time," that alone was a shock. To be clear, though, this is my personal memory, not a shared experience of most Chinese players.
First, it was a turn-based RPG online game. You could create a character and team up with other players to fight enemies. These designs seem ordinary now, but to me back then they were amazing. So I could actually make friends with strangers. Besides the Three Kingdoms theme, how could there be no Journey to the West? For Chinese people, their status is important. Journey to the West OL gave me a feeling that emphasized strategy more. I even gave myself some very domineering names, though my skill level was very limited.
Epilogue: How I see Bubble Games, and can you still play it now? In my view, Bubble Games was a special product of China's national conditions, a way of getting online during a period when mobile internet was underdeveloped. Maybe many people look down on it and think it's a scam, very low-end. But I want to say it did let some people come into contact with the internet. I'm not saying it was good — it's an experience from China's mobile internet era that needs to be remembered.
Unfortunately, now you can only play it through Mrpoid2, an MRP emulator. You ask me whether these games are still worth playing? I'd say apart from nostalgia, it's more about curiosity. As for the game ROMs, you can look them up yourself.
Just to add a bit of context: a friend told me it might have been running on MTK's Nucleus OS with a custom layer. But I'm still completely clueless about how the Bluetooth billing worked.
To all the hardware and software geeks here: I still don't know how they managed to charge via GPRS data for a single-player game (this is just my guess), or how Bluetooth transfers could trigger phone bills. If any devs know the trick, please enlighten me! I'd love to hear the technical magic behind this 2009 Shanzhai ecosystem.
