Ren'Py
| Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine | |
|---|---|
| File:Ren’Py Logo 6-13-6 200x307px.png | |
| File:Wikipe-tan visual novel (Ren'Py).png An example of a Ren'Py-created scene | |
| Original author | Tom "PyTom" Rothamel |
| Developer | Tom "PyTom" Rothamel[2] |
| Initial release | August 24, 2004 |
| Stable release | 8.4.1
/ July 24, 2025 |
| Repository |
|
| Written in | Python, Cython |
| Middleware | |
| Engine | |
| Operating system | Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Android, iOS |
| Size | 115 MB |
| Available in | English for the engine – UTF-8 use for resulting programs |
| Type | Game engine (visual novel) |
| License | MIT[3] |
The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine (or RenPy for short) is a free and open-source game engine which facilitates the creation of visual novels. Ren'Py is a portmanteau of ren'ai (恋愛), 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
[edit | edit source]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-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 scripts and archive game assets to mitigate copyright infringement.[4][5][6][7]
Ren'Py is built on pygame, which is built with Python on SDL. The Ren'Py SDK is officially supported on Windows, recent versions of macOS, and Linux; and can be installed via the package managers of the Arch Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo (in experimental overlay[8]) Linux distributions. Ren'Py can build games for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android,[4] OpenBSD,[9] iOS,[10][4] and HTML5 with WebAssembly.[4]
Reception
[edit | edit source]Ren'Py has been recommended as a video game creation engine by several outlets, including Indie Games Plus, MakeUseOf, PC Gamer, and The Guardian.[11][12][13][14] It has been used in classes at Carnegie Mellon School of Art,[15] Faculty of Art at University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kampar, Perak, Malaysia, and as a tool for information literacy.[16]
Notable games
[edit | edit source]See also
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References
[edit | edit source]Notes
- ^ Date of first completed public release, regardless of platform or region.
- ^ Some of these games have been ported to game consoles such as Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, but those ports also involve porting them from Ren'Py to other game engines such as Unity, as Ren'Py is not directly supported on game consoles.
Citations
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External links
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- Ren'Py Games List Archived 2017-08-03 at the Wayback Machine
- 2004 software
- Free game engines
- Free software programmed in Python
- Free software that uses SDL
- Python (programming language)-scriptable game engines
- Ren'Py games
- Software development kits
- Software using the MIT license
- Video game development software
- Video game development software for Linux
- Video game engines
- Visual novel engines