The Prying Eye - Development Thread

CutterCross

CutterCross

Active member
I've realized I should probably be sharing the development of this game here, so uh... here it is! I'll be posting significant development updates until the game is finished.

The Prying Eye is a NES point-and-click adventure game I'm developing. Links to the itchio page and Byte-Off 2020 gameplay trailer below:

https://cuttercross.itch.io/the-prying-eye



I've been working on refining NESmaker 4.5.6's textbox system to better suit my game's structure, and make it, y'know... stable. Right now I've gotten it to a pretty functional state, hopefully getting it interweaved with actual gameplay in the future.

PE_TextWorksTest2.gif
 
CutterCross

CutterCross

Active member
Alright so I've been secretly working on this for a while. What's a good point-and-click without mouse support?


So yeah, I'm working on SNES mouse support, which is an even greater achievement considering I have to work around DPCM sample input corruption, but that's all taken care of thankfully. I go more in detail in the video's description.

Right now I've just got movement and collisions set up, as well as input for warp tiles. I'm gonna be working on setting up a system to change controllers from the options menu which is going to be a chore. And after that it'll be getting textboxes to work with mouse input.
 
mouse spirit

mouse spirit

Well-known member
Very nice. You should add mic support for the konami laser scope for when i scream in terror. Assuming it has any scary spots. Im joking but it would be cool.
 
CutterCross

CutterCross

Active member
JollyShadow said:
Holy crap! That is so awesome. So is going to be for the SNES?
Click to expand...
No, this is still an NES game. It's just going to be compatible with the SNES mouse through a SNES to NES controller adaptor. I'll need to look into getting or building one of those for actual hardware testing. Mesen also already has SNES mouse emulation in its input settings, which is what I'm currently using to test with.
 
CutterCross

CutterCross

Active member
If it's in Screen Info, it can be used. But I don't think Path Groups were intended to be used like this...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mKFv-byiwQ


Been working on refining my rain particle system to use different graphics and directions for each screen. Didn't use Path Groups for anything, so I came up with a bit of a hacky solution that's still UI friendly. Does this actually look good for the title screen?

Also you might notice I'm using the 2nd set of Screen Flags for autoscrolling PPU window movement stuff now. Yes, they work. Yes, you can combine flags to move the PPU window diagonally, just no nametable updates. So it's really only useful for effects and such, which is all I really need anyway.
 
mouse spirit

mouse spirit

Well-known member
Personally, i like the focus on the eye and the movement goin on there. The rain doesnt do it for me. Very nice looking either way though.
PS. It actually looks like a bad signal. Like an older TV with some snow and horizontal vertical things goin on. Which can be cool.
 
CutterCross

CutterCross

Active member
The lengths I go to add parallax to everything...

PE_ParticleParallaxTest1.gif

I don't know if I'll use this for menus, but it looks kinda neat. Still gotta fix it for all directions, but that'll be for another day.
 
CutterCross

CutterCross

Active member
Making some progress on my controller selection system, got the confirmation screen *mostly* working. It at least changes depending on what controllers you selected in the Options menu. Still got quite a bit more to do on this, but it's a start.

game_026.png
 
CutterCross

CutterCross

Active member
Controller swapping system is done:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTYojIsWtes


Options screen got reworked to compensate, now all settings changes are buffered on the Options screen and can be confirmed on the confirmation screen, for both controller types and gamepad' B' speed settings for both players.

This alone is big progress already haha, next course of action is to work on implementing mouse inputs for textboxes and the like.

Oh and also added those particle effects to most of my menus for some extra flair.
 
CutterCross

CutterCross

Active member
Been a bit busy trying to rework the player warp system for 2 players. Had to fix a bunch of animation issues but this is the result. Now both players have to activate the same warp tile type to warp to another screen. I might end up redoing the "queued to warp" player graphic to be more visible and distinct.

Also mouse text activation works now. That was much easier to set up thankfully.

Basically this whole week has been a bunch of debugging work, fixing stuff. Next on the docket will probably be messing with setting mouse sensitivity.

PE_2PWarpSystem1.gif PE_MouseTextActivate1.gif
 
mouse spirit

mouse spirit

Well-known member
Are the 2 players networked? or how does it work on one screen?Well done also.

Edit: Meaning how does 2 player work.Incase my questions were sloppy.
Like the benefits or reason for 2 player.Or is it for fun?
 
CutterCross

CutterCross

Active member
mouse spirit said:
Are the 2 players networked? or how does it work on one screen?Well done also.

Edit: Meaning how does 2 player work.Incase my questions were sloppy.
Like the benefits or reason for 2 player.Or is it for fun?
Click to expand...
Right now 2 players wouldn't seem like they add anything substantial because the main game mechanics aren't implemented yet (which I want to keep secret until I actually finish them). But they are planned to add an extra layer of depth to the gameplay. Right now the order of business is to build the base mechanics first, then get to the actual content creation. So trust me, I do have things planned for 2P mode, just can't spoil them yet.
 
mouse spirit

mouse spirit

Well-known member
Cool and smart. This is the type of game that would allow two players
without alot of drawbacks such as sprite limits or slowdown,even if some.
And 2 player is almost always better.
 
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