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The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

renpy.org

21–30 of 91 posts

Re: The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

#21
post #11

For context, visual novels are basically ~novella sized stories that come with visuals like static backgrounds + a few dozen renders per character. The character renders tend to be mostly the same, with small variations in facial expression, pose, maybe outfit. All that to say, you probably won't like VNs unless you like reading. Don't expect much gameplay / animation. That said, the more famous stories tend to have…

>~novella sized stories

laughs in umineko and higurashi

Re: The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

#23

As somebody who has read a large number of visual novels (VNs), I consider Ren'py one of the better engines as a consumer: - It has all the basic featured you'd expect, ranging from proper backlogs, to key bindings, and much more. You'd be shocked how many VN developers think that they can just pop out an VN engine themselves, and end up producing something that lacks even basic features. - It is performant. You'd be…

Agree, as a person with accessibility issues, I prefer this engine because it has a basic TTS support that I can mod and plug my own custom TTS script. I also seen people reinventing poorly the engine in Unity so for me text based games or visual novels in Unity are just a NO , because of TTS support.

Re: The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

#24
post #11

For context, visual novels are basically ~novella sized stories that come with visuals like static backgrounds + a few dozen renders per character. The character renders tend to be mostly the same, with small variations in facial expression, pose, maybe outfit. All that to say, you probably won't like VNs unless you like reading. Don't expect much gameplay / animation. That said, the more famous stories tend to have…

[flagged]

Re: The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

#25
post #8

They have a database of over 4,000 visual novels built with this engine, but that barely scratches the surface. If you know where to look there are many thousands more projects built on this engine.

The Visual Novel Database (VNDB) alone lists nearly 12,000 titles that have used Ren'py: (Warning: This site contains a lot of text and images that are not safe for work. And it records a lot of works that many people will probably find distressing) https://vndb.org/v?q=&ch=&f=N1802fwRen_7Py-741&s=26y But as you say, that's barely scratching the surface. You can probably find many more on itch.io and in other communi…

That's weird, I don't think those old TypeMoon and Key visual novels used Ren'py. Maybe Ren'py is able to read files made for other engines like NScript or KiriKiri and that's why they show in the search?

Re: The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

#26
post #14
post #11

For context, visual novels are basically ~novella sized stories that come with visuals like static backgrounds + a few dozen renders per character. The character renders tend to be mostly the same, with small variations in facial expression, pose, maybe outfit. All that to say, you probably won't like VNs unless you like reading. Don't expect much gameplay / animation. That said, the more famous stories tend to have…

> For context, visual novels are basically ~novella sized stories Usually, but some of them are infamously ludicrously long. Like 2-3x War and Peaces long.

[deleted]

Re: The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

#27

If you're wondering what's up with the name, "Ren'Py" is a pun on the Japanese word "ren'ai" (恋愛), which means "romantic love".

And at the risk of stating the obvious, Py is for Python and Ren is for Render

The “Ren” part is surely coincidence, it doesn't really make sense.

Re: The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Visual Novel Database (VNDB) alone lists nearly 12,000 titles that have used Ren'py: (Warning: This site contains a lot of text and images that are not safe for work. And it records a lot of works that many people will probably find distressing) https://vndb.org/v?q=&ch=&f=N1802fwRen_7Py-741&s=26y But as you say, that's barely scratching the surface. You can probably find many more on itch.io and in other communi…

That's weird, I don't think those old TypeMoon and Key visual novels used Ren'py. Maybe Ren'py is able to read files made for other engines like NScript or KiriKiri and that's why they show in the search?

Fan-ports of VNs to Ren'py are not uncommon, in part because Ren'py supports mobile devices. For example, https://vndb.org/r99153

But you can exclude those by only searching for official releases:

https://vndb.org/v?q=&ch=&f=N1803fwRen_7Py-741Ng01&s=26y

Re: The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

#29
post #11

For context, visual novels are basically ~novella sized stories that come with visuals like static backgrounds + a few dozen renders per character. The character renders tend to be mostly the same, with small variations in facial expression, pose, maybe outfit. All that to say, you probably won't like VNs unless you like reading. Don't expect much gameplay / animation. That said, the more famous stories tend to have…

>~novella sized stories laughs in umineko and higurashi

cries in seagulls, cicadas and storks

Re: The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

#30
post #14
post #11

For context, visual novels are basically ~novella sized stories that come with visuals like static backgrounds + a few dozen renders per character. The character renders tend to be mostly the same, with small variations in facial expression, pose, maybe outfit. All that to say, you probably won't like VNs unless you like reading. Don't expect much gameplay / animation. That said, the more famous stories tend to have…

> For context, visual novels are basically ~novella sized stories Usually, but some of them are infamously ludicrously long. Like 2-3x War and Peaces long.

Got curious about the actual distribution so ran some queries on vndb [1].

Looks like the median renpy novel (with 100+ votes) takes 250min to complete with the ludicrously long ones [2] bringing the average up to 503min.

    engine      vn count  avg     25%     50%     75%  
    Ren'Py      251       503     120     251     571  
    KiriKiri    187       813     241     522     1143 
    Unity       65        871     224     452     1109 

[1] https://query.vndb.org/?sql=SELECT+%0D%0A++++r.engine%2C+%0D...

[2] https://query.vndb.org/?sql=SELECT%0D%0Avn.title%2C%0D%0AROU...

    title                       length (min)        engine
    HEAVEN BURNS RED            12580               CRIware
    Rance X -Kessen-            11085               AliceSoft System4.X
    Shoujo Settai               10418           
    Kamidori Alchemy Meister    8407                
    Seinarukana...              6858                
    Lessons in Love             6819                Ren'Py
    Sengoku † Koihime...        6744                CatSystem2
    Higurashi no Naku Koro ni   6626
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