Hi!
1. The contest is not abandoned. I am pretty busy and most of the posts are people actually looking for a team for the jam and the spam gets mixed in. I'll clean it up today.
2. You can map controls however would be most convenient, after all we are not running the game on the phone itself. If you want to go as close to the phone as possible the keys you choose would be in a big block to simulate the keypad and each button would be reserved for separate actions. As long as it fits within the control rules you would be fine.