Sacred Java/Symbian Game

[BelldandySkurd 1]

Hello Everyone! Long-long time lurker here, basically have been regularly playing sacred 1 since it came out. 

Today I remembered a little curiosity I happened to stumble upon back in the day, when symbian phones were the "new thing" in my country. I remember using all of my kb's on my very limited data plan to download the symbian port of Sacred, felt really nostalgic and came here to find more information but curiously no one has spoken about it, as a quick search suggests this. 

It is easy to find .jar files of this port on the internet but unfortunately my emulator was not cooperating with this one. Thankfully someone has uploaded a video so we can somewhat experience the overall feel (which was not that good even by standards of the time if I recall correctly). Game had German (obviously) and English support but the video is in Russian. 

Check the video: https://youtu.be/DnPdhls8nJc

Tell me if you know anything about it, would love to learn more about this obscure gem. 

[BelldandySkurd 1]

More info I found by searching the company on google: https://www.mobygames.com/game/sacred_

It seems to be ported by a German company just couple of months after the original PC version got released. 

[Timotheus 416]

I'm just here to leave a message so I'll be able to check this out tomorrow  this sounds interesting!

[gogoblender 3,068]

7 hours ago, BelldandySkurd said:

Hello Everyone! Long-long time lurker here, basically have been regularly playing sacred 1 since it came out. 

Today I remembered a little curiosity I happened to stumble upon back in the day, when symbian phones were the "new thing" in my country. I remember using all of my kb's on my very limited data plan to download the symbian port of Sacred, felt really nostalgic and came here to find more information but curiously no one has spoken about it, as a quick search suggests this. 

It is easy to find .jar files of this port on the internet but unfortunately my emulator was not cooperating with this one. Thankfully someone has uploaded a video so we can somewhat experience the overall feel (which was not that good even by standards of the time if I recall correctly). Game had German (obviously) and English support but the video is in Russian. 

Check the video: https://youtu.be/DnPdhls8nJc

Tell me if you know anything about it, would love to learn more about this obscure gem. 

firs time I've heard of this, BelldandySkurd ... sacred on such a tiny device?  :O

and a hearty welcome to the forums !

gogo

[Timotheus 416]

@BelldandySkurd @gogoblender

Well that was just a quick google-fu away. The original developer Elkware GmbH was apparently quite a big name in the Java mobile games scene. It has been acquired by Infospace which in turn was acquired by System1 and basically I cannot find any reference to any gaming related activities. I stumbled upon a download link. Gave it a shot, after I let my AV take a look at it, and then took the plunge. 

 

1. If you're on Android, download the game here: https://phoneky.com/games/?s=download&id=j4j137050 (I did this on my PC to let my AV check it, then saved it to Google Drive, then downloaded it to my phone from Drive)
2. Download J2ME Loader here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.playsoftware.j2meloader&hl=en_US
3. Open J2ME Loader
4. Navigate to the saved .jar file
5. Use the default settings in J2ME (screen size 240-320 / scaling 100% / enable "Touch input" and "Show keyboard" / lay-out "Nokia/SE" are the most important I recon)
6. Play away my friends  Sacred on a small screen, and in English!

Edited August 17, 2020 by Timotheus

[gogoblender 3,068]

8 hours ago, Timotheus said:

@BelldandySkurd @gogoblender

Well that was just a quick google-fu away. The original developer Elkware GmbH was apparently quite a big name in the Java mobile games scene. It has been acquired by Infospace which in turn was acquired by System1 and basically I cannot find any reference to any gaming related activities. I stumbled upon a download link. Gave it a shot, after I let my AV take a look at it, and then took the plunge. 

 

1. If you're on Android, download the game here: https://phoneky.com/games/?s=download&id=j4j137050 (I did this on my PC to let my AV check it, then saved it to Google Drive, then downloaded it to my phone from Drive)
2. Download J2ME Loader here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.playsoftware.j2meloader&hl=en_US
3. Open J2ME Loader
4. Navigate to the saved .jar file
5. Use the default settings in J2ME (screen size 240-320 / scaling 100% / enable "Touch input" and "Show keyboard" / lay-out "Nokia/SE" are the most important I recon)
6. Play away my friends  Sacred on a small screen, and in English!

I have an apple, so cant see this...but ..youre serious? Sacred on a small screen? do you play it side ways and with a controller?

:O

 

gogo

[Timotheus 416]

It basically mimics a small screen and keyboard on your phone. With the way I tried it, the bottom half of the screen is made up of a keypad to the left, and a sort of d-pad looking arrow system with additional buttons to the right. On the top, it shows the game. 

I'll try to capture it after work @gogoblender so you'll have an idea. AFAIK it's quite difficult to get emulators going on iOS.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Timotheus

[gogoblender 3,068]

7 hours ago, Timotheus said:

It basically mimics a small screen and keyboard on your phone. With the way I tried it, the bottom half of the screen is made up of a keypad to the left, and a sort of d-pad looking arrow system with additional buttons to the right. On the top, it shows the game. 

I'll try to capture it after work @gogoblender so you'll have an idea. AFAIK it's quite difficult to get emulators going on iOS.

I d love to see that.. little world of ancaria shrunk up into a phone... :lol;

and...elephant in the room... is this legal? do they have rights to distribute this? Sacred gold is still on sale right?

 

gogo

[Timotheus 416]

@gogoblender Well it's not Sacred as-is, for one.

What I gather from a few sites, Elkware is listed as an official developer of Sacred (Gamespot, IGN). And this German site mentions Elkware aquiring licensing for ports of both Sacred as well as Port Royale 2 which makes sense considering these are both Ascaron games: https://www.golem.de/0311/28434.html

Anyway back to work on the vid 

 

Update:

 

[gogoblender 3,068]

19 hours ago, Timotheus said:

@gogoblender Well it's not Sacred as-is, for one.

What I gather from a few sites, Elkware is listed as an official developer of Sacred (Gamespot, IGN). And this German site mentions Elkware aquiring licensing for ports of both Sacred as well as Port Royale 2 which makes sense considering these are both Ascaron games: https://www.golem.de/0311/28434.html

Anyway back to work on the vid 

 

Update:

 

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOw....

its all very well adapted for small screen, check out those menu displays!

... its liliputianness makes it so adorable...

This is great work... Thanks Timo for putting this up on Youtube for me..what a delight to watch this morning over cereal

gogo

[Timotheus 416]

Yeah it's so weird to see familiar town names, regions and NPCs and enemies. As you might have noticed there's respawning as well. And if you find a magical hiding place, that seems to stay where it is. So if you leave the area, and come back again, it seems to respawn at the same place. As a hidden stash again!

The target system is a bit hit or miss, sometimes you will hit targets from further away than you would expect, and somehow during the next encounter your character seems to swing at nothing but air a hair's width next to the enemy.

The graphical glitches are a little annoying: the items (potions, weapon, CA) don't align with the slots in the bottom, and the earned XP doesn't align with the actual XP bar. But that might be due to the fact it's played in an emulator, I'm not sure, this is the first time I've tried playing an emulated game on my phone. 

That said, it was fun giving it a go but I doubt I will be playing this any further 

Edited August 20, 2020 by Timotheus