The development of this re-implementation was moved to this scummvm branch. The Python version won't be updated.
This open-source project aims to be a modern engine re-implementation for "Private Eye" from 1996 by Brooklyn Multimedia. The first iteration is written in Python and uses pygame and SDL2. It should run in Windows, Linux, and MacOS.
This project is open for collaboration. If you are interested, please open an issue about it.
Only the English version of the game is supported. Localized versions (e.g. Spanish, French, etc) have game assets in a binarized format that it is not so easy to parse. However, if you own the English version and some localized version, you can still play installing the english one but then using the CD of your localized version.
Somehow playable: at least the first scenes can be played, but (most likely) the game is not completable. Saving and loading a game is implemented, but there is only one slot. However, some important gameplay elements are incomplete:
- Inventory
- Diary
Also, less important, but not implemented yet:
- Demo mode
- Original savegame interface and retro-compatibility
Finally, this re-implementation adds the following new features:
- Crossplatform support!
- Any screen resolution with scale2x (not only 640x480 as the original implementation).
- Python 3
- lark
- pygame 2
- FFPyPlayer 4.3.2
To install the dependencies, just use pip3 install lark pygame ffpyplayer --user --upgrade.
- Mount/load the CDROM.
- Install the game (you can use
wineor just extractsupport/assets.zusing unshieldv3). - From the game directory where it was installed, run
python3 start.py path/to/cdrom
If you don't own the full game, you can still play with this engine using the free demo following these steps:
mkdir demo
cd demo
wget "https://archive.org/download/PrivateEye_1020/PVT_DEMO.zip"
unzip -LL PVT_DEMO.zip
git clone https://github.com/wfr/unshieldv3
cd unshieldv3
qmake .
make
cd ..
mkdir assets
./unshieldv3/unshieldv3 extract support/assets.z assets/
python ../start.py .