this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2026
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Spent way too long modding an obscure 2007 J2ME horror, here's what came out (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by bittertears@lemmy.world to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
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Nowhere (Devalley Entertainment, 2007) is a psychological survival horror that ran on old keypad phones. Two parallel worlds, two characters, and honestly pretty unsettling for something that fit on a Nokia. Mostly I just want to get it in front of people who've never even heard of it.

The thing is, the original couldn't show Cyrillic and Western letters at the same time, so it never really got translated. So I ended up making two things, a mod and an editor.

The mod:

  • re-encoded everything to UTF-8, so it's 6 languages in one jar now (EN/DE/IT/PL/PT/RU), switchable in-game
  • parallax fog it didn't have before
  • hardcore mode, enemies get 3x HP
  • speed control per save, helps a lot on slower emulators

The editor (Windows):

  • visual editor for text and dialogue, with avatar preview and CP1251/UTF-8
  • tile map editor with a brush, palette, resize
  • zone editor for collisions, warps, entity spawns, events
  • sprite sheet viewer with PNG export/import
  • palette editor (16 colors) with live preview
  • reference text for all 6 languages built in, so you can add your own without diving into hex

You can play it right in the browser, or grab the jar for J2ME Loader or KEmulator. The editor and a video on how to translate are on the same page:

https://bittertears.itch.io/nowhere

https://github.com/bittertears/NOWHERE_EDITOR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJPq5GX_sK8&t=29s

Anyway, hope someone here digs it.

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[–] 11111one11111@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

"Dont forget to blink or drink water." -Rick Sanchez on taking adderall

[–] xianjam@programming.dev 3 points 3 days ago

Looks neat. Honestly, I want to play it simply because of your passion.

[–] Lehmuusa@nord.pub 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

You wouldn't know the name of the Series60 game where you would turn into a cockroach and try to find out what the hell happened to your wife and kids? I played through the whole very unsettling game and fell in love with the story. And then I forgot what the heck the game was called :/

[–] Yaky@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 days ago

Sounds a bit like Bad Mojo, but it was a PC game.

[–] bittertears@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's a similar story here, only you turn into a cockroach only at the end 😄 But overall, no, I don't know.

[–] Lehmuusa@nord.pub 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I wonder if it could still be the same game. Let's actually use the spoiler tag for talking about an actual spoiler:

click to see the spoiler. Better, don't click.So, was the main character actually the reason the car had crashed and was feeling remorse for having not rescued his family? And then decided to just happily live their life as a cockroach after figuring out what the hell had actually happened?

[–] bittertears@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

In fact, you seem to be describing this particular game, it really does have this, it's one of the endings

[–] Lehmuusa@nord.pub 2 points 3 days ago

Yeah, didn't recognize it for first, but now I am sure. Thanks!

I've been trying to find this game for the last two decades, because it's the best game I've ever played in its genre! :)

You're awesome!

[–] Redkey@programming.dev 1 points 3 days ago

This is amazing. I've been on a bit of a J2ME jag lately, and it can be difficult to find working copies of games, and then guess the requirements for running them. There are archives of dozens of copies of the same game, all with nearly identical file names, but each one has been tweaked for a different series of phones. Which file targets which phones? Who knows?!

I loaded your .jar into my emulator and it worked first time. I had also seen this specific game and wanted to play it, but it seemed only to be available in Russian and Chinese.

Thanks for all your hard work. It's really appreciated!

For anyone who's interested in J2ME horror, I also recommend the Silent Hill Orphan series. There are three games that I know of; point-and-click first-person adventures with simple combat. I bought and played them on an actual phone back in the day, but I think they're still good in emulation.

[–] Leooo549@masto.es 1 points 3 days ago

Increíble tengo un Nokia Asha 503 y un Nokia E5 que quiero revivir con juegos nuevos, muchas gracias por tu gran proyecto, me emociono ver qué aún hagan cosas para J2ME, no sé mucho de programación todavía pero me gustaría algún día hacer un juego para mis celulares también😊
@bittertears