what's wrong with my game?

Tree Branch pointed it out correctly. There is a watch battery inside the cartridge used to calculate time in the game. If that battery runs dry, the game's save data will go away and it will not save again.

There is a way to fix this but it's risky. You have to take apart the cartridge so you can take out the watch battery. However, it is not that easy. The battery itself is glued to a couple of prongs keeping it in place plus it's been soldered down. If you have no mechanical aptitude with a soldering iron, I suggest you find a professional to help you out with this. The battery itself is cheap to purchase and can be found at any old Radioshack. It's a CR2025 battery, one of those circular watch batteries.

There is a set of instructions on how to do this:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-replace-the...

But like I said, don't attempt it if you do not have experience with tools. Also not the best idea to simply try to force the battery out and taping the new one down... it's ineffective. You want someone to solder it down for you.

Just download ROMS. If you're unaware on what a ROM is, it's a read only file, which can be used for games such as pokemon. you will also need an emulator. go to coolrom.com and you can get downloads from there, here's the emulator i'd recommend for gameboy: Visualboy advance. Hope this helps

sorry but our game appears to be malfunctioning and as a cartridge theres really nothing you can do.... you could prolly get one cheap on ebay or if not you could always buy the remake soul silver its actually relly good

I'm not too sure if it has a battery in it or not (I hate those) but maybe the battery ran out? Or maybe you accidentally magnetized the cartridge?

I have no clue mine does the same thing noww