#renpy tips

[magicalwarriordiamondheart]

Quite a lot of assets I used I have a collection of on Itch so others can check them out as well btw :3

[sk3tch404]

Enjoy!

transform shakechar:

ease .05 yoffset 20

ease .05 yoffset -20

ease .03 yoffset 12

ease .03 yoffset -12

ease .01 yoffset 4

ease .01 yoffset -4

ease .01 yoffset 0

Example:

show nonny_cry_laugh at shakechar

You don't have to name it shakechar btw, I just called it that because I thought it was kinda funny

-Ren'py anon

Thanks Renpy nonnie 😍😍😍

Ur a life saver fr

These transitions were getting very anticlimactic 😷

AND YAY HACKER NONNY IS GETTING A SHAKE TRANSITION EXAMPLE USED ON HIM !!!

His cry laugh be sounding 😥 but ☺ at the same time

I will call it shakechar too because that makes a lot of sense and its from u XD hehe

[itlivesproject]

hiii! your project is AMAZING and you're all so talented 😭😭 but i have a question if you feel comfortable with sharing. which apps/programs you guys used to recreate the game? I'm interested in developing my own games but have no idea where to start. can you give me some tips? 🙂 tysm anyway!

If you want to make a standalone visual novel, then the program we use, Ren'Py, is perfect! It's free and designed specifically to make visual novels easy to make for everyone, including beginners. I had literally zero understanding of programming when I started working on ILW and just figured it out through tutorials, asking questions on forums, and trial and error.

This is the Ren'Py link.

Because this is long, under the cut I'm sharing some things you'll need to think about if you want to make a visual novel:

Your team:

You don't have to have a team of people helping you with this. You can do it alone. However, I will say that ILW would not be what it is if I had just tried to go it alone. It is so much better than anything I could've dreamed of when I first got the idea. More people on a team = more ideas, more constructive criticism and feedback, and more heads going in together to make a better product. But if you want a team, you need to make sure you maintain an attitude and environment that is open to suggestions and contributions from others. Be ready and willing to throw out ideas you like if it no longer works or someone thinks of something better. Nothing kills the creative spirit faster than defensiveness and competitiveness, so to have a well-working team, open-minded members and sharing your ideas and criticism in a positive way is extremely important.

Art:

This is one of the first things you should really nail down, because if you start working on your game but never figure out the art, everything else will go to waste. For most VN creators, they usually hire out for art. For us, since this is a free fan project, our artists worked for free. We were also lucky to already have a bunch of backgrounds and assets from Choices that our artists could edit, so we didn't have to make dozens and dozens of entirely new backgrounds. If you're going to have to hire out, I'd try to really compress the amount of art you'll need - plan ahead and cut down unnecessary characters who'd need sprites, maybe use a silhouette for unnamed characters, and limit the amount of backgrounds you'll need, because backgrounds take up a lot of space, they take up a lot of time to make, and they're expensive.

Programming:

Obviously, programming is a big thing. If you have enough motivation, you should be able to figure out a lot of this on your own. If you use Ren'Py, be sure to read the documentation, watch a lot of basic tutorials, and just get into the engine and start getting your hands dirty! It seems like a lot at first, but once you get the feel of it, it's actually not too complicated. When it comes to programming, I recommend simplifying everything as much as possible. When I first started ILW, I didn't simplify things much (because I was figuring things out) so what I used to do in three lines of code I now do in one. Limiting the amount of code you ultimately end up writing GREATLY diminishes possibility of errors and bugs. Also, try to get as organized as possible. Make as many folders, subfolders, and text files as you need. Don't try to put the whole script in one file, don't put all the images in the same folder. Good organization goes a long way to making everything a lot easier to keep track of.

Game structure:

Piecing together a branching game is honestly quite a puzzle. Before going into working on your game, you should sit down and figure out game mechanics. What points do you want to include? Personality? Relationship? Romance? Skills? Some kind of narrative scale akin to blood vs shadow? Figure out what points systems you want to include and then figure out how that's going to impact the story and where. When creating love interests, don't just create a character and assume they'll fit themselves into the narrative. Focus on the character as a character first, meaning determine how they fit into the story's narrative, and then think about them as a love interest second. If you do this, it will make them a better character and a more satisfying love interest. Finally, start the game knowing how much variation you want. Do you want something with immense, diverging endings? How much variation do you want within one scene? Because interactive fiction is so determinant on player choices and there can be so many routes, it's not a good idea to just go with the flow and see what happens, because otherwise you won't be able to reconcile all the different routes you likely created. So figure out the overall structure for your story in terms of mechanics before you really start on planning.

Planning and writing:

Once you have the previous stuff figured out, then you can start actually planning the story and eventually, writing it. Again, I'd recommend you figure out the previous stuff first because if you start planning and writing immediately, but then it turns out you can't solve the programming, or can't get art, then all this work will have been for naught. My advice on planning: do NOT skimp out! Additionally, to make the love interests feel more important to the story as a whole, I would recommend the technique of arc outlining, which is essentially when you take each love interest separate from each other and plan out scenes that tie into the story to further their individual character arcs. Doing this makes it easy to figure out where tender relationship and intimate moments can go, and those moments will be more interesting because they're connected to an actual plot point instead of just being like "it's sexy time!" Once you have your plans, you can start writing. Depending on how long your story is, writing can be really difficult. It takes a lot of time and thought, and burnout is real.

Music:

You'll want to figure out how you'll get music for your game. Again, creators usually hire out for this. On the Ren'Py forums, there's actually a specific topic for music that helps you network with composers who are looking for jobs. For us, again, since we're a fan project that's not making money, we could use 1) Choices music 2) tracks from a music library I have a deal with and 3) as a composer myself, I wrote some original tracks. Also, if you're looking for free sound effects, freesound.org is actually perfect for that. It's where I got the siren, forest, and ghost voice SFX!

Distribution

Distribution can be tricky! For ILW, we originally wanted it to be playable online, but we eventually removed that option because 1) saving online was complicated 2) the quality wasn't as good and it couldn't run smoothly and 3) we didn't want people who could download it, play online and have a bad experience instead of downloading it. If you offer an online option, most people will take it. For indie games, I think using something like Steam or itch.io is the way to go. Unfortunately, that will make it so it's not available on Apple products, but to get it on Apple you have to package it specifically for Apple which is difficult, and you have to pay $100/year to be allowed to have it up on the app store in the first place.

Hopefully this helps! This is really just scratching the surface, but here are some things to think about if you're interested in making your own visual novel.

[redroom-rainbowguts]

One of y'all should bite me to look into figuring out the hellscape that is renpy again

[pallisia]

do you have any ren’py related tips?

yeah i gotta tip..........don't use renpy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol !!!

renpy's been fine. as i've said in the past, i don't know anything about coding and it's very friendly to a know-nothing like me.

one thing i've gotten a lot of mileage out of is this:

the default "dissolve" transition includes a pause that hides the text window, which can be jarring when you need to transition between images while a character is talking. this transition omits that pause.

also, i could give advice like "name your files in an organized manner" but i literally do not do that lmao

[chattercap]

Hi! I'm playing MMM and am really enjoying it! :D But what I find really interesting is how your visual novel is made in Godot instead of Ren'Py. I wanted to ask how you make your games in Godot/what tips would you have for someone who wanted to use Godot?

Ohh thank you so much for playing; I'm glad you're enjoying it!

I'll be honest, I do not recommend my method of making games in Godot to anyone, haha! I started off with Unity, and during that time I coded my own custom framework (instead of using a pre-built one like NaniNovel) because I wanted to practice coding. After the Unity fiasco, I swapped over to Godot as it was open-source and supported C# code, and I ported most of my C# code over to Godot without many changes. So currently I use mainly a custom framework written in C#, besides the code relating to my animation program (Spine2D).

If you want to make games in Godot, I would actually recommend NOT doing what I did. I would

1) Code your games in GDScript if you have no plans to port your game to something like Unity and you have no experience with C# coding. GDScript is much easier to learn, and Godot currently has a bit more support for GDScript. C# support is very good, but not 100%.

2) Use a framework. Rakugo is a framework specifically designed after RenPy for Godot; I haven't used it, but it looks very nice and seems worth looking into. At the very least, I would use a dialogue manager - Godot Dialogue Manager and Dialogic are the main ones.

Now for actually making the framework, I would emphasize simplicity and modularity.

Simplicity: VNs are VERY lightweight. I was actually worried about the performance of MMM, as I used fairly heavy animation rigs and I didn't optimize it, but I've gotten reports that it works quite fine (well, even)! So don't worry too much about optimizing, and just try to make things simple and optimize later if needed (for instance, for searching for audio files, images, etc. - I just search by the filename using strings, even though this is inefficient/inoptimal).

Modularity: This is a general game design principle, but it's good to make it so that different parts of your game are as independent from other parts as possible. Only give access to information/variables as absolutely necessary, and control how variables are changed very strictly. This helps to reduce bugs and makes it easier to bugtest! I found it helpful also to organize the parts of the VN into different "systems" that all function independently - each of these systems can be deactivated or reactivated separate from each other, and they can also be tested as such as well.

If you want to know how I separated mine, they are:

Backgrounds, Audio, Sprites, CGs, Panels (mini CGs/cut-ins), GUI, Story (also contains a mini manager for Story Flags), Dialogue/Text Boxes

If you want another example of a VN made in Godot, I actually took a look at this one to see if it was "possible". It might be worth looking at! They did a lot of cool things that I didn't implement, such as a time rewind feature and more dynamic CG/sprite movement.

I hope that this was helpful! Best of luck if you decide to pursue Godot development! I'd be very happy to have more Godot VN devs in the community~

[arcadekitten]

You get a lot of asks about rpg maker, but I'm starting to use Renpy for the first time, so I wanted to ask if you have any tips.

Honestly my best resource is this tutorial series--it's what I learned from!

It's a decade old but all the basic principles are the same and they do a really great job at making things clear!!

(this is such an old version of Ren'py so when Ren'py asks what engine you use, I personally use the Atom editor!)

[lovelylittlelevity]

Hello! I'm a bit curious on what game engine you all use to make the game itself? Are there any small tutorials you can give? Do's and don't? What was the hardest challenge when making the game and any tips for beginners who want to learn? I really like the game and I feel a bit inspired after playing it.

We used an engine called "Renpy"!

Renpy Download

You can click here if you want to download it! There are small tutorials on how to use Renpy on YouTube but I personally use this for beginners.

Zeil Learnings 10 minute tutorial

Visual Studio Code

This is the app I'm using on my computer! If I'm not mistaken, Renpy uses python.

Just some of my tips:

• Save regularly. I had a time where half of my coding went missing because I didn't save and it took me hours.

• Double checking your codes.

• Its best to have a tab open so you can check through Google, Renpy Forums and/or tutorials on YouTube.

• Careful if you wanna spend hours on coding. It could lead to headaches.

• ALWAYS keep a spare file. If you wanna mess with some of the settings of the game, best to keep one spare in case the one you messed with broke down.

• Keep basic codes written in a note. In case you're like me who has bad memories, always write them down.

• Plenty of rest. Don't be like me-

My hardest challenge on doing the coding is honestly when I can't find that one specific code that was wrong- Had to check through 300+ lines of codes, and when I was done checking that code, I moved onto the next file. Coding GUI is hard too.

And yes, The Y/N's have different sheets for their codes.

- Puppit

[vndev]

Spooktober VN Jam Sponsorship Announcement!

We're very happy to announce our sponsors for the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam 2023 competition! Without them, our competition couldn't exist, so lets thank them for what they do for visual novels!

Ratalaika Games joins us again this year as our top dog sponsor! Ratalaika Games is a publisher and port service provider for visual novel developers looking to take their RenPy games to the Switch console!

JAST USA and JAST Blue joins us for the first time this year! JAST is a name known well by fans as a localizer of Japanese games and visual novels. They're seeking new otome and BL creators and showing their support for our community and competition!

Vograce also joins us for the first time this year! Vograce iss a merchandise provider for charms, pins, and other merch essentials. Vograce is seeking to support developers by being the best place to get merchandise made for your fans to enjoy!

Visual Novel Design also joins us for the first time this year, though many of you already know the man behind it! Spooktober VN Jam winner Vimi shares his tips and tricks to creating great visual novels through his YouTube platform. New and veteran devs can learn a lot!

Lastly, Visual Novel Machinery joins us this year. VN Machinery is an Unreal Engine based plugin designed for experienced Unreal Engine developers looking to make visual novels through their engine of choice!

We've received a total of $8,500 from our sponsors, and we're excited to see what you'll make this year! We're working to get the prizes and categories sorted out still, so stay tuned for more information and check out the jam page over on Itch.io!

[woitvn]

🌟WOIT VN🌟

Have you ever come across a message in a bottle? Addressed to no one and anyone who might find it. Waiting patiently, longing for someone to read it...

That's precisely how you think the author of the mysterious form at the bus station might have felt.

✨WOIT✨

We would be delighted to meet you.

If you're interested, step into our world and enjoy the

experience we've created just for you.

No one in their right mind would ever interact with such a suspicious form. And yet, you find yourself unable to deny that it piques your interest. Perhaps you might even venture to respond.

What do you say? Are you in?

WHAT IS WOIT?🤔

WOIT is an upcoming visual novel under the adult dating simulator genre (+18)

Within the story, you'll encounter six characters with whom you can develop either romantic or platonic connections, all the while uncovering the mysteries of their alternate dimension.

TRIGGER WARNINGS🚩

Gore, Bullying, Swear words, Depression, Addictions, Obsessive love and Erotica.

ASKBOX RULES📨

I will not answer any questions unrelated to the game.

Check if your question has been answered previously with the Tumblr search.

Be patient and do not send the same question repeatedly in the same month.

If you have sent your question twice, and I do not answer, it could be due to several reasons. Your question is most likely a spoiler. It may also be that I have already answered something similar, or that it is within the topics already addressed in this post.

Constructive criticism is welcome. I will appreciate you writing tips and recommendations to help me improve the game.

NSFW (not safe for work) questions are allowed, but I won’t answer extreme kinks.

ABOUT FANWORKS💌

Fanart with OCs, fanfics and merchandise of this video game are allowed for personal use, dissemination and sale as long as the original material from which the characters come is credited.

I DO NOT allow tracing or coloring posts of my art. You can trace, copy or color my drawings for your personal study, but do not post it online. The only exception to this rule is the creation of OCs that imitate the style of the video game.

I DO NOT allow the distribution of replicas of the game.

I don't mind if you compare my characters to existing ones. You may also mix fictional worlds within your fanfics.

I would love it if you honored each of the character's sexuality in your fanwork.

FREQUENT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS📩

There are multiple unlockable endings depending on the decisions you make throughout the game.

The game will be available in English and Spanish for PC (Windows and Mac) and Android. Versions for different devices and languages will be released on separate timelines.

The game is made with Renpy. The art is done using Krita.

Game newsletters will be shared through itch.io.

[mokadevs]

hi .. ive been wanting to get into gamedev and your stuff inspires me... do you have anything you used to get into it in particular? or just any advice in starting?

aw ty ^_^ the advice i have for basically any creative endeavor can be 100% applied to gamedev:

start small; do not make your magnum opus game the first game you make, or the second, or the fifth. make tiny games, enter 48 hour game jams, do things small that have a tiny deadline and you can make yourself finish

for gamedev especially, i'll emphasize- Set Deadlines. again, true of any creative endeavor, but w gamedev especially i find it incredibly easy to be like "oh, i'll just add x and y to it-" and it quickly bloats out of size, its why i have a lot of trouble releasing games that i don't work on with someone else. when i'm on a team it forces me to scope a lot better because i'm not just throwing myself under a bus

as for how i got into it... i majored in gamedev but only because it was the closest to a creative field my parents would let me major in and still help with tuition since i pursued it with a programming focus but i will be honest. did not learn a lot from the curriculum itself, it mostly just put me in the mindset of "ok this is what i want to have as a job, so i need to learn it" and followed youtube tutorials

which is what i recommend- for a Bit. for your first few games, pick an engine you like (i recommend godot or unity if you want to actually go into "gamey" gamedev and create original games w mechanics, rpgmaker or renpy if youre not really into programming at all and/or want to create very hyper specific games) and follow a few tutorials from tip to tail. "how to make a flappy bird clone" or something.

however, after a few of those, stop using them and instead try to create something original. you can use them for specific things (like maybe you need to search up what a specific function does, or whatever) but largely the game needs to be made by You. the purpose of the tutorials is to familiarize yourself with the engine, but you need to make sure you aren't reliant on them forever or you'll screw yourself over

hopefully that was helpful ^_^

[magicalwarriordiamondheart]

Hi I am looking at downloading the demo but I am worried I will not be able to read it because of how small the text is in the text boxes in the images you’ve shown. Is there a setting to make it bigger?

Alright so I've actually currently added some new accessibility options! (bigger font sizes, and the option to switch the font to hyperlegible has been added, and the dark mode theme to name a few)

but as I was a little worried about the code for the option to switch the theme color, it's only on patreon (and for KS backers) right now in a build with extra chapters and all that good stuff. It looks like everything is cool though so I'll be working on putting together an update for Itch this week

BUT!! If youre a computer user, you'll be happy to know that Ren'Py actually has a built in functionality for this as well!!

If you press "A" on your keyboard while in game it brings up the engines built in accessibility menu. It'll look a little different in the current itch build since the hyperlegible font is something I actually added in recently (I actually use code from this very menu to do the font switch lol)

This is part of the engine itself so it's something that is available in most (modern) Ren'Py games unless the dev disables the key shortcut

[sk3tch404]

Although I don't know how you're planning your game visually (like how you wanna do transitions between backgrounds and stuff) I got a code that makes the characters do a lil jumpy jump to the next sprite if ya want, and you can customise how much they jump while doing it too 👉😎👉 only if you want to of course!

-Ren'py anon

Oh wow do share! I only know vpunch and fade rn bc yeah

Id love to have that code sent over to try out. Thanks again renpy anon. You're the best!

No context ingo meme :D

[itlivesproject]

So I've recently started learning Ren'Py. I'm glad to say it is pretty easy and I've made a few test VNs that are functional, which makes me very happy.

However, I'm aiming to make HSS-based projects, so I do want it to resemble the Choices app's style like ILW and BB:TS do. But unfortunately, I'm having a bit of trouble achieving that.

I tried changing the text box, but it was difficult to fit the text into it right. And the buttons were even worse because they always came out looking wonky. And that isn't even accounting for the screen orientation– the version I have gives me only four resolution options that are all in landscape format.

Do you guys have any tips on how to effectively make my projects look more like the Choices style? Thanks!

The default settings for renpy are all geared towards landscape orientation. You’ll need to find in your game settings where it establishes the screen size. I think it’s in options.rpy but I don’t remember… we used 768 x 1360 iirc.

Whats happening with the buttons is that most likely, the set size for the choice button isn’t the same as your actual choice button. So if your choice button image is 768 x 150 or something but in the gui file, it’s set as like, 500 x 200, it’ll stretch and resize your image, distorting it into a weird looking shape.

As for text boxes and such, we basically had three different text styles: narration, player character, and NPC. The narrator had no speaker so if we never specified who the character was for dialogue, the game automatically routed it to use the narrator “style.” Then whoever was set to the playable character would have their text on the left side, and every other person would be on the right side. We did this in the screens file by customizing the say screen.

My main advice honestly is to just get in there, read documentation, test things out, and then get involved in renpy community forums. There are a lot full of really helpful people. I used the lemmasoft forums a lot, as well as the Renpy discord server. You can ask for help on specific issues and share what your code looks like so people can give you suggestions on how to tweak it the way you want.

Good luck with your HSS fan projects!

[favorvn]

Hey I’m thinking about maybe making a visual novel game, do you have any tips.

Love your work by the way

JUST DO IT!

Even if you doubt yourself, just push through and make the thing, no effort is wasted effort and perfect is the enemy of good 💕

I can't really give technical tips because, tbh my coding is ASS like just all spaghetti. I put one thing in and spent the next 4 hours trying to fix 3 things I accidentally broke by putting the one thing in LOL 💀. Google is your best friend, and thankfully, there are a bunch of renpy resources out there. Just keep an eye out for indentations as renpy is very picky.

GOOD LUCK THO YOU GOT THIS

[campwillowpeak]

I’m WAY early in the process of making an 18 + erotic visual novel…can I have some advice? I plan to make a tumblr for it soon, but I’m a little overwhelmed.

Ok! *cracks knuckles* I get ya! It was super overwhelming when I started out too!

So some tips from Mama Sloth!

Have a clear vision in your mind about what you want your game to be before making your tumblr! Yeah things can change and evolve here and there as you go but your main focus should stay consistant!

Don't be a dummy like I was and make your info post later, make it one of your first posts and pin it!

The default tumblr layout is boring, find one thats easy to navigate and fits what you need!

In terms of developing the game itself! My main go to sources for when I need help figuring something out is youtube tutorials and the Renpy subreddit! They're super nice over there and really friendly to new devs from what I've experienced

Schedule out your work days if you can! That way you don't end up overworking yourself as easily

Remember that a lot of people making VNs in this community are just starting out with their first game too! A lot of us are figuring it out as we go and thats perfectly fine, don't worry too much about how fast your progressing or comparing your growth to others :)

Don't be afraid to reach out to other VNs! This is a community and a community is for interacting! We're all here to have fun :)

SEND ME YOUR TUMBLR WHEN YOU MAKE IT I'D LOVE TO FOLLOW!!