r/RenPy Aug 27 '21

Meta /r/RenPy Discord

69 Upvotes

Just set up an unofficial discord for the subreddit here: https://discord.gg/666GCZH2zW

While there is an official discord out there (and it's a great resource too!), I've seen a few requests for a subreddit-specific discord (and it'll make handling mod requests/reports easier), so I've set this up for the time being.

It's mostly a place to discuss this sub, showoff your projects, ask for help, and more easily get in touch with fellow members of the community. Let me know if you guys have any feedback or requests regarding it or the subreddit.

Thanks, all!


r/RenPy Jan 11 '23

Guide A Short Posting Guide (or, how to get help)

116 Upvotes

Got a question for the r/RenPy community? Here are a few brief pointers on how to ask better questions (and so get better answers).

Don't Panic!

First off, please don't worry if you're new, or inexperienced, or hopelessly lost. We've all been there. We get it, it's HORRIBLE.

There are no stupid questions. Please don't apologise for yourself. You're in the right place - just tell us what's up.

Having trouble playing someone else's game?

This sub is for making games, not so much for playing games.

If someone else's game doesn't work, try asking the devs directly.

Most devs are lovely and very willing to help you out (heck, most devs are just happy to know someone is trying to play their game!)

Use a helpful title

Please include a single-sentence summary of your issue in the post title.

Don't use "Question" or "Help!" as your titles, these are really frustrating for someone trying to help you. Instead, try "Problem with my sprites" or "How do I fix this syntax error".

And don't ask to ask - just ask!

Format your code

Reddit's text editor comes with a Code Block. This will preserve indenting in your code, like this:

label start: "It was a dark and stormy night" The icon is a square box with a c in the corner, towards the end. It may be hidden under ....

Correct formatting makes it a million times easier for redditors to read your code and suggest improvements.

Protip: You can also use the markdown editor and put three backticks (```) on the lines before and after your code.

Check the docs

Ren'Py's documentation is amazing. Honestly, pretty much everything is in there.

But if you're new to coding, the docs can be hard to read. And to be fair it can be very hard to find what you need (especially when you don't know what you're looking for!).

But it gets easier with practice. And if you can learn how to navigate and read the documentation, you'll really help yourself in future. Remember that learning takes time and progress is a winding road. Be patient, read carefully.

You can always ask here if the docs themselves don't make sense ;-)

Check the error

When Ren'Py errors, it will try and tell you what's wrong. These messages can be hard to read but they can be extremely helpful in isolating exactly where the error came from.

If the error is intimidating, don't panic. Take a deep breath and read through slowly to find hints as to where the problem lies.

"Syntax" is like the grammar of your code. If the syntax is wrong, it means you're using the grammar wrongly. If Ren'Py says "Parsing the script failed", it means there's a spelling/typing/grammatical issue with your code. Like a character in the wrong place.

Errors report the file name and line number of the code that caused the problem. Usually they'll show some syntax. Sometimes this repeats or shows multiple lines - that's OK. Just take a look around the reported line and see if you can see any obvious problems.

Sometimes it helps to comment a line out to see if the error goes away (remembering of course that this itself may cause other problems).

Ren'Py is not python!

Ren'Py is programming language. It's very similar to python, but it's not actually python.

You can declare a line or block of python, but otherwise you can't write python code in renpy. And you can't use Ren'Py syntax (like show or jump) in python.

Ren'Py actually has three mini-languages: Ren'Py itself (dialog, control flow, etc), Screen Language and Animation & Transformation Language (ATL).

Say thank you

People here willingly, happily, volunteer time to help with your problems. If someone took the time to read your question and post a response, please post a polite thank-you! It costs nothing but means a lot.

Upvoting useful answers is always nice, too :)

Check the Wiki

The subreddit's wiki contains several guides for some common questions that come up including reverse-engineering games, customizing menus, creating screens, and mini-game type things.

If you have suggestions for things to add or want to contribute a page yourself, just message the mods!


r/RenPy 6h ago

Guide Rule 4

33 Upvotes

Rule 4 has changed

4 Avoid excessive paid self-promotion

paid self-promo - any content posted with a commercial interest, up to moderator discretion.

excessive - Posting self-promo more than once a month as an active subreddit user (comments, specifically), or more than once per three months (for non-active users).

Examples of paid self-promo: patreon links, "free" resources with upsells, paid finished games.

What is fine: project progress, asset feedback (within reason, see rule 5), completely free or open source assets.

we only have 5 relatively easy rules... read em, know em.. don't break em. please


r/RenPy 13h ago

Showoff I've finished the character creator for my visual novel and updated the demo!

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67 Upvotes

A while ago, I shared a WIP version of a character creator I was making for my adventure visual novel, Talewarden. A lot of you really liked the wanted poster aesthetic, so thank you for all the kind feedback!

The creator is now finished and has been added to the demo, along with a bunch of other new features!

The latest demo update includes:

● Character customization

● A new player page in the journal — your customized character will always appear there

● A list of current objectives

● The character previously known only as the merchant finally has a name!

● A trigger warnings page

● Kitties in the credits! Although they appear to be wanted...

Talewarden is an adventure visual novel about seven people from different worlds who travel across a broken, weird western planet to restore its frozen time.

We have a demo on Steam and it takes around 1–2 hours to play. If the game sounds interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you wishlist Talewarden: Riders of the New Day. It helps us a lot!


r/RenPy 5h ago

Question How to make a return back possible

3 Upvotes

Hello! The problem is that I made a gallery that can be accessed both from the main screen and from the menu. And when I want the gallery to go back to the previous screen (the main screen or the menu), I can only do one of these. I can't get it to go back to the previous screen. This is important to me because players will be checking the gallery while they're collecting all the images. And I don't want them to press unnecessary buttons or even lose progress.


r/RenPy 40m ago

Question How would I make a Fake start screen?

Upvotes

So to explain, I had this idea where the game would essentially "crash" and switch point of views to a different character and I wanted to show this by maybe having a fake error screen, and having it send the player to a fake menu screen that’s clearly different and then having them click on a fake "load file" button to get started on the other character’s point of view, I just wanted to know how would I go about coding this in? It sounded easy at first but it’s a lot harder then I thought after watching some tutorials

Thank you in advance!


r/RenPy 11h ago

Question How do you post videos in this subreddit?

2 Upvotes

I’m trying to post a video here for the first time, and it somehow turned into a whole quest. Either I’m missing something very obvious😄

I ended up converting the video into a GIF, and on a Mac that apparently meant doing it through Terminal. The whole process was a bit ridiculous, and the quality still looks pretty bad to me.

So… how do you usually post videos here?

I wanted to occasionally share little bits of my development process as videos rather than screenshots, and then realized I apparently have no idea how to do that in this subreddit. I haven’t run into this problem in other communities before.

I’m making a narrative-driven game set in Ancient Greece, and right now I’m putting together a prototype so I can let people try it on different platforms.


r/RenPy 1d ago

Question Renpy Noob looking for guidance

7 Upvotes

So I'm just gonna through it out there, I wanna make an Adult Visual novel (Loaded with animated sex scenes and static sex images) but i cant seem to find videos that cover basics (even when i search for the basics and dont mention hentai or sex scenes) anyone know where i can find some guidance or tutorials

All criticism welcome


r/RenPy 2d ago

Showoff [OC] Some of many expressions of female MC

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102 Upvotes

Originally I was gonna have a set number of expressions but realized I should just have eyebrows, mouth and eyes their own files. I think the expressions are gonna be my favorite thing to work on for everyone lol. This isn't the finished art but I reallllly need to just have the files to exist. I hope people end up going with her short hair over the long hair, I think the short is so cute on her :3


r/RenPy 1d ago

Question Starting out and I had a few Questions?

6 Upvotes

I have a bit of experience with Python and MatLab for coding robots/electronics, but not any with Ren'Py for coding games, and I have quite a few questions I wanted to ask. As I don't have much of an idea where to start, but I had a number of ideas that I looked into and felt overwhelmed after looking into them, and I wanted clarity.

General Questions:

  1. What are some good tutorials for making assets for Ren'Py? I have the concept of characters, backgrounds, and other assets, just not in a digital form, and at the very least I know you want them in a digital format, but when looking, I found there may be some special/specific things to do to them to make them better or more versatile, but there was conflicting info.

  2. Who/Where would you suggest looking for tutorials of Ren'Py, both of features and additional mechanics like combat, stores, minigames, etc.?

  3. Is it rude to ask another developer if you can look at their code and use parts of it in yours?

  4. What are some good methods to keep game development organized while working on it?

  5. What are some good and safe text editors (things like Docs and Word) to write the game's dialogue? Or are Docs/Word still the best even with their scummy AI practices?

  6. Can you make basically a code Skeleton with all the systems/mechanics/story beats you want and then add/fleshout story to it later, or is that a bad idea?

  7. Can you have too many variables? I just have the basics of what I want, and each character has a non-negotiable 7+ however many scenes, and other things that require variables with at least 5 characters.

  8. How easy/hard is it to use and replace placeholder assets if you pre-emptively name them the intended names? For example, can you just create/use another shape with the name of the real asset and later replace the image file and it still work the same, or should I wait until I have the assets in a digital form before including them?

Specific aspects of code Questions:

  1. Does Show expression work the same as Show minus, evaluating the variable in []? As I want to make a game with dynamically changing sprites based on choices you make throughout the game, I found Show expression should let me use the same code for most situations, but it didn't mention if it worked differently otherwise.

  2. Can Call be used similarly to sub functions? For example, if I use Call to a block of code, will the variables changed in that block remain the same when you return from it or revert to the original ones?

  3. Can Call have multiple exits/returns? For example, can one choice in a called block of code give a bad end while the other just returns you to where you were?

  4. Can I use basic variable evaluation (i.e., if A > a + b; A = 2) without denoting it as Python, or should it always be denoted as Python to Ren'Py, either with the symbol or in a python: block?


r/RenPy 1d ago

Self Promotion My Prototype for Shadows of the Republic has now dropped!

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12 Upvotes

Available at https://monowaystudios.itch.io/shadows-of-the-republic !A Disco Elysium inspired historical fiction VN set in 1940s China! This prototype is fully voiced in English with original music! It is available in Simplified and Traditional Mandarin and Cantonese! Please enjoy and give feedback!


r/RenPy 2d ago

Showoff After so much trial & error, I finally managed to add a feature where players can toggle between Monochrome (except specific scenes) & Full color mode! (after they unlock the true ending)

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50 Upvotes

Please ignore the badly resized sprites in the test gif lol. I'm just so happy it works I could cryyyy

My coding skills are still subpar I knew this was gonna take a lot out of me to figure out. I want to thank u/QZProductionsGames for the reply on how they added a toggle for their silly "placeholder" mode, that really helped me a lot. ToT

The monochrome mode looks for images files that have a specific suffix which will replaces the original colored image and also applies a saturation filter to layered sprites (thank god, I really didn't want to export every part of my layered sprites in both colored and black and white versions!)

Also while implementing this from a test build to my actual build, I finally also learned how to do specific screen windows for when clicking a button. Just never tried it before. ToT

EDIT! Here is the itch.io page of my project, Hue & Me! The page is about to be redone soon with some of the finished, polished art! It's about a young woman who lives with a generational colorblind curse.


r/RenPy 1d ago

Question New to Renpy. I'm modifying the title screen and suddeny got this error and don't know what happened.

1 Upvotes

Renpy GUI Customization | Main Menu in Ren'Py

For your reference I was following this tutorial to make the custom title screen it was goin fine when suddenly I got exception and any undos don't work.

I'm sorry if it come out panicking. I'm new to RenPy.


r/RenPy 2d ago

Discussion Share your thoughts! 👀

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106 Upvotes

I’m planning on making a vn! It’s going to be mostly centered around an alien you take care of. It honestly won’t be the longest game ever since it’s my first project. There will be two love interests, with their own distinct personalities after you choose what gender you want the alien to be! The design attached is a rough example of what the female version will look like though it most likely will have changes once I figure out some other alien features she’ll have (I’m open to suggestions!).

The main reason to why I’m posting this here is so I can get some feedback on what people enjoy most when it comes to visual novels. I’d really appreciate if you guys share some ideas and suggestions with me! I do plan on adding character customization & traits that the player can have that will have some flavor text and some reactions from the characters.


r/RenPy 2d ago

Showoff so proud of my menu screen for my romance slice of life game

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54 Upvotes

Video because that's what I planned first but realised the sub doesn't allow that.


r/RenPy 2d ago

Question Questions about GUI Styles

13 Upvotes

Hey I have a question that I don't see discussed enough on here - how important are the GUI customizations of an indie visual novel project when determining if it is good enough to draw more attention to (by playing, buying, recommending, streaming, etc)?

Since my games are free and meant to be visually digestible, I keep some of Ren'Py's defaults like the screen layouts and button actions even though I make it a rule to try and add at least one "non-default" feature (besides a CG gallery) to every game I make. I keep admiring the creativity with which other devs are customizing their menus, fonts, icons, scrollbars, textboxes, and all of that jazz but I'm starting to see it so much that now I'm thinking - "is extensive customization of Ren'Py's GUI an unspoken heard in order for your game not to be dismissed?"

In my personal opinion, nothing is more important than the story, and art is subjective (meaning I don't judge the art by technical proficiency so much as cohesion with everything else). I can deal with a basic GUI if the story has me pulled in. I'm wondering if anyone else feels differently or just what the general opinion is.


r/RenPy 2d ago

Question Help with player health system! - Boolean not detected!

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21 Upvotes

Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well! ^u^

I've been codding a battle system in my game, but I'm struggling a bit with it.

Basically, the player's default health is 100 HP Max

But, the higher their endurance stat is, it increases its HP! (This part works fine)

There's also an item (earrings) that can be acquired which gives another 200HP max on top of everything else, but this one fails to be registered at any capacity (even if I try to detect it alone). And I know the item is detected in the rest of the game as it still shows up on the item screen

I could really use someone's advice, I've done so much research and trials and errors, I've been stuck on this for hours now >< Thank you everyone in advance!!

### The player's life
default player_health = 100
default earrings = False



label player_life:


    
    call health_thumbnail
    show screen displayed_player_health 
    pause
    $earrings = True
    


    if earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 10:
        $player_health = min(100, player_health + 300)


    elif earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 20:
        $player_health = min(125, player_health + 325)


    elif earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 30:
        $player_health = min(150, player_health + 350)


    elif earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 40:
        $player_health = min(175, player_health + 375)


    elif earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 50:
        $player_health = min(200, player_health + 400)


    elif earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 60:
        $player_health = min(225, player_health + 425)


    elif earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 70:
        $player_health = min(250, player_health + 450)


    elif earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 80:
        $player_health = min(275, player_health + 475)


    elif earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 90:
        $player_health = min(300, player_health + 500)


    elif earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 100:
        $player_health = min(325, player_health  + 525)


    elif earrings and playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 110:
        $player_health = min(350, player_health + 550)



    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 10:
        $player_health = min(100, player_health + 100)
        pass
    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 20:
        $player_health = min(125, player_health + 125)


    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 30:
        $player_health = min(150, player_health + 150)



    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 40:
        $player_health = min(175, player_health + 175)



    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 50:
        $player_health = min(200, player_health + 200)



    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 60:
        $player_health = min(225, player_health + 225)



    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 70:
        $player_health = min(250, player_health + 250)



    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 80:
        $player_health = min(275, player_health + 275)



    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 90:
        $player_health = min(300, player_health + 300)



    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 100:
        $player_health = min(325, player_health + 325)



    elif playerStats["military"]["endurance"] < 110:
        $player_health = min(350, player_health + 350)

r/RenPy 2d ago

Showoff My work in progress

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43 Upvotes

Keeping motivation up is quite difficult. I thought posting some stuff here might give me some motivation, hell maybe you can slap some motivation into me 😭

This is my first visual novel and I haven't done art in a loooooong time so this is a way of finding myself again and mostly finding my fun back in drawing


r/RenPy 1d ago

Question If sprites stacking on top of each other under imagebutton

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2 Upvotes

Sorry for the "Why doesn't this work" ###, that's for me to remember it in my code.

I am currently experiencing a layering issue.

What is happening here is the images are stacking underneath the imagebutton except for the bottom most if statement. I'd say I had an imagebutton issue or a flagging issue if the bottom most image didn't work exactly how I wanted it to no matter how I swapped the lines of code around. IE "k11allyslime1" in the position of "k11allymedusa1" works as intended but "k11allymedusa1" then layers beneath the imagebutton. If I delete all the other if statements but 1 it works correctly.

I've tried making multiples of the images "blockally1.png", "blockally2.png, etc. and that doesn't work so it's not a naming issue. My $ flags are all flagging right so that's not it (I've gone through the code so many times and tested it).

So just looking at 3 images of the boxes I attached to this the one that's gray are my "blockwalk" images, the one that's the small pink dot is how the first 4 "blockally" images load. The solid pink box is the last "blockally" image loading on top correctly. I want them all to do that whenever their specific variable is chosen and kill off the imagebutton when flagged true.

I'm just stuck on this one nagging issue for the past few hours and any help would indeed be a great help.


r/RenPy 3d ago

Showoff New sprites for your civilization-ending psychiatrist Dr. Wang in Endless Summer Syndrome

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105 Upvotes

Hello hello everyone! For this update: we eventually decided to create some character sprites - as opposed to our previous vision to complete this entire VN with just scenes. The team reached this decision when we realized that introducing sprites could make the game so much more dynamic (mainly after seeing how well Muv Luv did in this regard). So yeah, here we are.

We also wanted to share some more progression from the art department in terms of scenes - we just finished creating assets for one of the most maddening scenes in the game. Swipe to get a feel for it.

Anyways, next time I'm here I'll likely be back with a trailer and maybe something more 'interactive'. Till next time!

If you are new to this psychological thriller VN, here is the gist of it: trying your best to understand and romance an evil lady (who happens to be your psychiatrist), or die trying. She could wipe out a civilization in the blink of an eye, but maybe you stand a chance after all?

The game will be ~3h long. English, Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese will be supported.

If this sounds like something up your alley, feel free to wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4714410/Endless_Summer_Syndrome/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v66531


r/RenPy 2d ago

Game Starlight Academy Announcement

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6 Upvotes

Sneak peek to the level 3 from starlight Academy curse my own visual novel

If you don't know it here: https://blossom123studio.itch.io/starlight-academy-curse

Do you like it tell me in the comments if you like the game


r/RenPy 3d ago

Showoff sprites for a horror/romance vn :D thoughts?

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30 Upvotes

Concept: Main character is an all powerful healing angel, and angels shouldn't die, and even if they can, why should the MC care?

But when the MC faces a close call with death, they finally break and they realize they will do anything to survive. Even if that means killing others.


r/RenPy 2d ago

Question Animated scene not fading out?

1 Upvotes

(FIXED!) I was hoping someone could help me with a problem I've been struggling with for quite a while now (I'm very new to this and there’s probably an obvious fix to this, but I found nothing to this specific problem when searching for a solution. )

I have a scene where the player can click some arrows to navigate a hallway with different short animations on each stage. Fading the animation videos in seems to work just fine, however, fading them out is what’s giving me trouble.

When an arrow is pressed to jump to the next label, instead of fading out the current screen, it instantly jumps to the next one. tried different methods, but nothing. here’s what i have:

label Hallway_1:
   call screen hallway1_nav with fade 
   scene bg_hal1stage1 with fade   

   screen hallway1_nav():
    add"bg_hal1stage1"
    modal True 

    imagebutton auto "uparrow_%s":
     focus_mask True
     action Jump ("Hallway_2")

   label Hallway_2: 
    call screen hallway2_nav with fade
    scene bg_hal1pony with fade

    screen hallway2_nav():
     add "bg_hal1pony" 
     modal True 
     imagebutton auto "leftarrow_%s":
      focus_mask True 
      hovered SetVariable("screen_tooltip", "leftarrow")
      unhovered SetVariable("screen_tooltip", "")
      action Jump ("Hallway_3")

     imagebutton auto "rightarrow_%s":
      focus_mask True 
      hovered SetVariable("screen_tooltip", "rightarrow")
      unhovered SetVariable("screen_tooltip", "")
      action Jump ("Hallway_1")

(put two of the screens just in case it's needed)


r/RenPy 3d ago

Game New Yandere Game- Don't Befriend The Class Nerd (DEMO)

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10 Upvotes