How can I join a game?

My friend has a Galaxy Nexus and I just got an HTC One X, and we both have the newest version of Minecraft Pocket Edition.

We want to play on a server together (we will be sitting right next to each other), but when I opened the game and made it visible (I was connected to the local WiFi network and he was connected to the same one), he couldn't access it, and vice-versa when he tried to host.

Am I missing a step or do we have to be over the data network? Does the game host phone have to be running as a mobile hotspot?

Solution 1:

Just tried out having the phones connected to the host phone via mobile hotspot and it worked! Just make sure that you have background downloads turned off so that you're not wasting all his data. I'd assume you can probably connect through a wifi router as well, but since the wifi router at our school is locked down, there's no way to prove that it works at this point.

Solution 2:

You need to be in the same WiFi network. One of you has to open the world and the other one has to press "Join Game". Then the server will be listed.