About 3 or 4 years ago Sonic Unleashed J2ME's source code leaked. But no one's really talked about the stuff in it, so I figured I would. Worth noting is that Unleashed J2ME is built off a Prince of Persia game (Not sure which one, Gameloft made like 10) so some data from that is also left over, and the source code's name goes by pallan whatever that has to do with Prince of Persia, I suppose. Let's look at some cool images. In _master_data/gfx/images there's 2 really interesting pieces. splash.png has a screenshot from Sonic 06's 2005 reveal trailer. Neat. Now this is what I'm really here for. This is an early render of one of Unleashed's promo art, specifically this one: The lighting is very different, and Wherehog's fur straight up isn't rendered!!! The logo is also very early, taking cues from Sonic 06, with the Unleashed part looking like it was made in like some basic presentation program. In _master_data/gfx/sprites the file sonic2.png shows that's Sonic's sprites were draw overs from Sonic 2/3 and they got horribly compressed in the process. Moving away from graphics. _master_data/text has a file called text.ods which can be opened with LibreOffice and has comments! Most of them regard formatting. Here, in the Polish translation it's noted that the word Obszar (Area) has been reduced to Obsz due to character limits. And the German translator says ok a lot. Speaking of German, apparently a bug is tied to the German version of the text that states "Congratulations you got the emerald!" Another document which wasn't intended for game use, but rather sound design lies in _master_data/sound under the name SonicUnleashed_Sound_Design_Document_V0.0.1.xls This lists all the game's sound effects, their extension, their description, and what mobile formats they'll play on. Some more interesting info's at the bottom of the file too. Now this isn't unused as much as it is cool, but Gameloft left in their own proprietary tools for their engine here called AuroraGT, which serves as a sprite and level editor. And that's just for the cool finds in the files. I've gotta snoop around the actual code to see if anything neat is hidden there. So I'll keep y'all updated.
This is pretty cool. I've always been fond of this little game, dunno why,but I find it cute (those sprites are cute... at least.. I find them cute). The early render is a great surprise. Good job!
This is really cool, thank you for posting this. Was a fantastic read. Also somehow never noticed the sprites were sonic 2/3 redraws, but seeing them in a sprite sheet makes it a lot more noticeable lol
Funny that it's built on the framework of one of their Prince of Persia games, because those games and this are basically the only "dumb phone" games I've played. My exact words upon playing Unleashed mobile for the first time about a month ago were "because I can make this comparison, Unleashed mobile is nothing compared to the Prince of Persia mobile games". Given the time period, I'd assume it's Prince of Persia 2008, one of the better ones. I had no idea the source code leaked, but since it has, is there any chance someone could rebuild the game in Unity or something? It's the kind of game that really needs a more powerful engine, to get it running at a smooth frame rate, with music playing, and proper physics. I had to stop playing it because the version I downloaded just straight up had nonfunctional physics on rope swinging that made it impossible to finish.
While not Unity because they've burnt the bridge with their userbase, I did take a crack at it in Godot. However, J2ME's source level files are very basic and leave some tiles unused. So I thought I'd clean them up to be more visually appealing. But alas I got sidetracked. And never completed the project as I often do.
Well, I can't guarantee I'd be a constant contributor, but the first thing I definitely did upon hearing it wasn't done was to see if there was somewhere it was posted - even if it ends up being mostly an undocumented holding place, seeing as it's in Godot people can definitely look at that.
Port talk aside I should talk about some more findings. Chun-Nan and Mazuri were originally going to be Adabat and Shamar, as their files refer to them as jungle and middle_east instead of china and africa. There is an exception in that the music proper calls Chun-Nan 'china' readme.txt also provides information about the development environment used by Gameloft. They used Windows2000, although their tools seem to be compatible with Windows 10/11 so that's not an issue. Their JDK was Java 2 SDK 1.4.2_10, installed in C:\j2sdk1.4.2_10. It can be downloaded from here. They also used a J2ME SDK called WTK. Which stands for Wireless Toolkit. Frankly, I'm too tired right now to find 2.0, which is the version Gameloft used. But the newest version seems to be 2.5.2_01, and I'm suuuuure that it should work fine, which that can be found here. And it's installed in C:\WTK20 They also used Python 2.3, installed in C:\Python23. The JDK and Python were also used in the environment variables. For whatever that's worth. There's also a release_note.txt. It really only covers what was done in May 2009. Interestingly, despite being made after the console versions, and despite the rest of the files referring to the Wherehog as Wherehog, this changelog calls him Dark Sonic, which is what Wherehog was called in early versions of Unleashed. Here's the log: Spoiler: Long Code (Text): 2009-05-23 - add a new level--zone 3-1 - add a new boss level-- zone 3-2 - update the sound design document, send the sound design requirement to Audio Team - optimize some sprites of the enemies, include robot,bug and fish. 2009-05-12 - use the new sound package - fix bug 2429776 2447082 2448747 and all crash bug on bug base - update dark sonic and the actor ball ai - update actor enemy creator detect range - add a new levevl--zone 3-2 - update zone 3-1(add a new gameplay line) - update greece level 1 and 2. add the time of air bubble - Update a new kind of enemy (iron ball in zone 3-2) 2009-05-14 - fix some phy bug - fix dark sonic throw fist bug - fix all crash bug - fix z3 boss disappear bug - upadte the level 3(zone 2-1),level 7 (zone3-2) - remove the ball, because the memery don't allow to add this gameplay. - optimize some animation, optimize the modules and frames in the sprite. - improve some FPS for greece level 2009-05-17 - fix check point bug - add the stone system - add chip in cinematic - update time attack mode - add the story text at beginning of every level - update the whole story brief before loading every level - fixed some gameplay bugs. 2009-05-19 - fix check point bug - fix dark sonic climb bug - fix all crash bug - fix some interface bug - change the size of the text - update the design of the air bubble - update the name list of credit - fixed smoe gameplay bugs 2009-05-20 - fix some collide death phy bug - fix dark sonic attack bug - reduce the size of the heap - improve the interface and menu - fixed some display bug about the multi-language 2009-05-21 - fix freeze bug - fix interface bug - fix zip name midlet description bug - update new text, improve the help and stroy text - fix a segment bug. - reduce some map tiles for saving the memory. 2009-05-22 - fix freeze bug - fix some game play bug - modified the about display - improve some menu sprite - fix some display bug about the multi-language - improve some new text 2009-05-22 -fix text overlap bug -fix some game play bug -improve the interface -divide the multi-language about the interface,level end icon and enemy creator icon -update the map of zone3-3 -replace the new sound package from aduio team. You may notice that the English in these changelogs are pretty bad. This is because, as readme pointed out, the studio that developed Unleashed J2ME was the one in Hyderabad, India.
