The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine (or RenPy for short) is a

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

which facilitates the creation of

visual novel A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...

s. Ren'Py is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of , the Japanese word for 'romantic love', a common element of games made using Ren'Py; and Python, the programming language that Ren'Py runs on.

Features

Ren'Py includes the ability to create branching stories, save file systems, rollback to previous points in the story, a variety of scene transitions, DLC, and so on. The engine also allows for movie playback for both full-screen movies and animated sprites, in-engine animation (using the built in "Animation and Translation Language", or ATL), and full animation and customization of UI elements via "Screen Language". Ren'Py scripts have a

screenplay A screenplay, or script, is a written work produced for a film, television show (also known as a '' teleplay''), or video game by screenwriters (cf. ''stage play''). Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of w ...

-like syntax, and can also include blocks of Python code to allow advanced users to add new features of their own. In addition, tools are included in the engine distribution to

obfuscate Obfuscation is the wikt:obscure#Verb, obscuring of the intended meaning (linguistics), meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with mental confusion, confusing and ambiguity, ambiguous language. The obfusca ...

scripts and archive game assets to mitigate

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

. Ren'Py is built on

pygame Pygame is a cross-platform set of Python modules designed for writing video games. It includes computer graphics and sound libraries designed to be used with the Python programming language. History Pygame was originally written by Pete Shinne ...

, which is built with Python on SDL. The Ren'Py SDK is officially supported on

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, recent versions of

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, and

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

; and can be installed via the

package manager A package manager or package management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals wi ...

s of the

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an Open-source software, open source, rolling release Linux distribution. Arch Linux is kept up-to-date by regularly updating the individual pieces of software that it comprises. Arch Linux is intentionally minimal, and is meant ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

, and Gentoo (in experimental overlay) Linux distributions. Ren'Py can build games for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android,

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

, and

HTML5 HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...

with

WebAssembly WebAssembly (Wasm) defines a portable binary-code format and a corresponding text format for executable programs as well as software interfaces for facilitating communication between such programs and their host environment. The main goal of ...

Reception

Ren'Py has been recommended as a video game creation engine by several outlets, including Indie Games Plus, MakeUseOf, ''

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...

'', and ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''. It has been used in classes at Carnegie Mellon School of Art, Faculty of Art at University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kampar, Perak,

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, and as a tool for

information literacy The Association of College and Research Libraries defines information literacy as a "set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued and the use of infor ...

Notable games

References

Notes Citations

External links

*
Ren'Py Games List
{{DEFAULTSORT:Renpy 2004 software Free game engines Free software programmed in Python Free software that uses SDL Python (programming language)-scriptable game engines Software development kits Software using the MIT license Video game development software Video game development software for Linux Video game engines Visual novel engines

Features

Reception

Notable games

See also

References

External links