Ren'Py

Ren'Py is an open source, completely free and multiplatform visual novel engine implemented in Python and designed from the offset to help users use words, pictures and sounds to tell stories with their computer.

The software is distributed as a SDK (Software Development Kit) and it’s comprised of easy-to-use and efficient script languages, which make it possible for non-programmers to create visual novels without too much hassle.

Features at a glance

Key features include a game menu, automatic saving of games, window and fullscreen gameplay modes, rollback functionality, predictive image loading, the ability to independently change sound effects, voice and music volume, as well as the ability to skip text, auto-advance text, or hide text.

In addition, it includes a tutorials that will be presented to users from the get-go. All you have to do to get started and learn how to use the application to built visual novels is to click the “Launch Project” button. A visual novel will immediately open in a new window, but you will still be able to edit its configuration files with a text editor that will be recommended to you when trying to edit the respective files.

Requires no installation

Ren'Py requires no installation, just download the latest release from Softoware or from the official website of the project (see the homepage link at the end of the article), save the archive on your Home directory, unpack it, open a Terminal app, navigate to the location where you’ve extracted the archive file (e.g. cd /home/softoware/renpy-6.18.3-sdk) and run the ‘sh renpy.sh’ command.

Works with GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Windows OSes

Ren'Py is a cross-platform software, which means that it’s officially supported under all GNU/Linux distributions, as well as on the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. On Linux and Mac it is compatible with both 32 and 64-bit computer platforms, but on Windows it is supported only on x86 machines.

What is new in this release:

• This release adds the showif statement to screen language. The showif statement shows and hides its children based on a condition. When its children are ATL transforms, showif delivers ATL events to manage the show and hide process.
• Ren'Py's image prediction mechanism now models the return stack, and can predict images through a call and return pair. Previously, a call followed by a return would block image prediction.
• Ren'Py now predicts that the start label will be called from the main menu. This will help to avoid unpredicted image loads at the very start of a game.
• The ATL on statement now can take a comma-separated list of event names.
• The new updater.UpdateVersion() function contacts an update server and determines if an update is available.
• The new renpy.invoke_in_thread() function runs a function in a background thread, and restarts the interaction when that thread finishes.

What is new in version 6.16.3:

• This release fixes a problem that could cause excessive texture memory usage. It also improves Android support in several ways, making it possible for Ren'Py games to appear in the tablet section of Google Play.

What is new in version 6.16.2:

• This release adds a Spanish translation of the launcher and the template game.
• This release adds the new renpy.get_mouse_pos() function, which retrieves the mouse position if a mouse is supported.

What is new in version 6.14:

• The Ren'Py launcher has been rewritten. It's now far more attractive, and contains a new script navigation function that makes it easy to navigate Ren'Py code.
• For most creators, we now recommend using the Editra editor with Ren'Py support. While still in beta, Editra is a lightweight and powerful programmer's editor to which we've added features that ease Ren'Py development. (jEdit is still supported, when Editra is not suitable.)
• The Ren'Py build process has also been updated. Now, it's possible to, in a single click, archive files and build a distribution of your game. Games may also use the same web updater that's used to update Ren'Py.
• The engine proper has also seen many improvements:
• Video playback has been rewritten to improve robustness, performance, and stability. WebM is now a supported format.
• The new A White Tulip theme, written from scratch, provides some diversity to the look of Ren'Py games.
• Improvements to rollback, including the ability to fix rollback so that the user can't change a choice once made, without reloading.
• Several convenience shortcuts have been added to screens. A viewport with scrollbars can now be created as a single statement, and the style properties of text inside textbuttons and labels can be changed directly.
• An experimental new image load log helps creators understand image prediction and cache misses.
• Linux x86_64 is now supported by Ren'Py. Linux distributions will support both x86 and x86_64 cpus.
• Ren'Py ships with Python 2.7, and many of the libraries that underly Ren'Py have been updated.
• This release has seen a huge amount of support from the community. I especially thank:
• Edwin, for contributing the improved rollback support and several bug fixes and new features.
• Doomfest, for the visual design of the new launcher.
• Ren and Jake Staines for contributing the new A White Tulip theme.
• SleepKirby for improvements to Ren'Py's documentation.
• Apricotorange, for adding the NVL-mode tutorial to Ren'Py's documentation.

What is new in version 6.13.12:

• Fixes a related minimize and restore bug.
• Improves compatibility with games that replace config.keymap.
• Allows StylePreference and Language to work together.
• Logs to the system temp directory if it can't writhe to the current directory.
• Allows the screenshot filename to be configured by the creator.
• Fixes keyboard adjustment of bars.
• Updates the preferences screen when the window resizes.
• Clears keyboard modifiers (like alt) when the window gains focus. This fixes a problem where the alt from an alt-tab would be remembered by Ren'Py, even after the key has been released.

What is new in version 6.13.8:

• A crash when dealing with certain invalid fonts.
• Pausing too long when typing out text.
• Cutting one pixel off a block of text when fractional kerning was used.
• Crashing when the time was set in the far future or past.
• Immediately exiting when rolling forward at the quit prompt.
• Crashing when a non-existing directory is added to the search path. (This prevented Katawa Shoujo from starting in the latest version.)
• Save-file size was overly large due to screens being included in save files.

What is new in version 6.13.0:

• Text display has been rewritten from scratch. In addition to supporting many new features, the new implementation of Text is much faster at text layout and display, and contains much cleaner code.
• Some of the new features that are now supported by the text display system are:
• Interpolation of variables enclosed in square brackets. It's now possible to write code like:
• "You scored [score] out of a possible [max_score] points."
• The new string interpolation takes place on all text that is displayed, rather than just say and menu statements. When used as part of a screen, interpolation has access to screen-local variables.
• PEP 3101-style string formatting is supported, which means that this syntax can be used to display fields and items, as well as variables.
• Kerning support was added, both as the kerning style property and the k text tag.
• Support for ruby text (also known as furigana), via the rt and rb text tags, and the ruby_style style property.
• The new space and vspace text tags make it easy to whitespace into the text.
• The new cps text tag controls the speed of text display.
• By default, Ren'Py uses the unicode linebreaking algorithm to find points at which a line can be broken. This algorithm should correctly break lines that contain a mix of western and eastern languages. Since that algorithm is incorrect on some Korean texts, Ren'Py also implements a korean-with-spaces variant, that only breaks runs of Korean text at whitespace. These algorithms can be selected by the language style property.
• Ren'Py now uses the Knuth-Plass linebreaking algorithm to choose the points at which it actually splits lines. This algorithm attempts to minimize the unevenness of all lines except the last. Ren'Py also supports a nobreak mode, which allows one to create a Text larger than the screen without it being automatically wrapped. These can be selected using the layout style property.
• The new newline_indent style property determines if Ren'Py adds indentation after a newline in text.
• The new line_leading style property inserts space above a line of text. (Ruby text can be placed into this space.)
• Text can be automatically translated before it is displayed. (This support will be improved in a future major release.)
• DirectX Support
• On Windows systems that have the February 2010 DirectX update installed, Ren'Py will use DirectX via the ANGLE adaptation layer, in preference to OpenGL or software rendering. The ANGLE layer is used by popular web browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome. This allows hardware rendering to be used on systems with built-in graphics, where drivers often support DirectX far better than OpenGL.
• At startup, Ren'Py will test the graphics capabilities of the computer it is running on. If the software render is being used, or the game renders at an unacceptably slow speed, Ren'Py will display a warning message to the user. The warning message includes a link to a page on renpy.org that explains how to update the graphics drivers.
• This version of Ren'Py will only use the software renderer if both DirectX and OpenGL are incapable of rendering Ren'Py games. Screen-scaling in the software renderer has been replaced by a simpler but slower version.
• Other Changes
• Ren'Py now includes a style preference system. This system allows styles to be changed after the init phase has finished. These changes are saved with the persistent data. Among other things, style preferences allow a game to offer the user the option to change the font, size, and color of dialogue text.
• Support has been added for screen-based image galleries and music rooms. This support consists of a classes that provides actions that make it easy to present the user with graphics and music. The creator is responsible for creating screens that use the supplied actions.
• The default screens.rpy file, used when a new game is created, contains support for a "quick menu". This menu adds buttons to screens that allow the user to quick save, quick load, save, toggle skipping, toggle auto-forward mode, and access the preferences menu.
• Ren'Py includes 5 new themes, and a number of new color schemes.
• Several new actions have been added. The SelectedIf() action allows the creator to control if a button is displayed in the selected state. The SetMixer() action allows a mixer to be set to a specific value. The Rollback() and RollForward() actions allow the creator to bind rollback to buttons.
• The behavior of the xfill and yfill style properties was accidentally changed in the 6.12 series. It has been returned to the historical behavior.
• The Dissolve() and ImageDissolve() transitions now take a time_warp parameter.
• The Frame() displayable now allows the user to specify the left, top, right, and bottom borders independently.
• The caret style property allows the user to customize the caret of an input widget.
• The renpy.displayable() function has been exposed to the user.
• Timers can now take a list of actions, rather than just a single callable.
• Three transforms were added to the default library: top, topleft, and topright.
• Ren'Py can now load files (including images, music, and fonts) from an Android package.
• User-defined statements can now take a block, which the statement is responsible for parsing.
• Wrote documentation for:
• Menus
• Transforms
• Creator-Defined Displayables
• Several indexes were added to the documentation, and the style was updated.
• Ren'Py now uses the libjpeg-turbo library, for faster jpeg loading. Ren'Py now uses libav 0.7.1, for improved compatibility with movie formats.
• Removed support for the iLiad platform.
• PowerPC support has been removed from the main Ren'Py distribution. It's available as a download from the Ren'Py web site.
• Thanks to Aleema for contributing the new themes and color schemes.

What is new in version 6.12.2:

• ATL Transforms with parameters compile correctly.
• MultipleTransition works in conjunction with pauses.
• The mouse is shown when a quit action is run while a movie is playing.
• A fix for a lockup that occured when the user entered the game menu while a transition was running.
• RENPY_SCALE_FAST works again.
• Ren'Py compiles with newer versions of ffmpeg.
• Skipping ends when the game restarts.
• Fixed a problem with texture upload that made games noticeably slower.
• Choose a better default size for windows on small monitors, like netbooks.
• xfill and yfill now work for vbox and hbox, respectively.
• Click-to-continue fixes.
• Side image fixes.
• Documentation fixes.

What is new in version 6.12.1:

• Image attributes make it no longer necessary to specify every part of a changed image.
• The say statement can change image attributes when a character speaks.
• Side images can be specified with the image statement, and can be used with NVL-mode dialogue.
• Sticky transforms allow a transform to continue through an image change.

Requirements:

• Python