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on Gopher (inofficial)
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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine
xrd wrote 4 hours 27 min ago:
My 8 year old daughter loves graphic novels. And she's a budding
writer. I got really excited to show her some of the links posted here.
Then I dug a little deeper and saw that a lot of it is very sexualized.
I'm not opposed to that for adults but it isn't something I want my
daughter exposed to.
Anyone have suggestions for safe spaces for kids? I really love the
idea of her creating using ren'py but I'm worried it is a gateway to
things she isn't ready for yet.
optionalsquid wrote 3 hours 47 min ago:
I'm afraid that I don't know any kids-safe spaces for budding VN
readers or writers, but you can use VNDB to search for visual novels
with an appropriate age rating. The following query returns all VNs
with a release rated for 3-8 years, excluding any that have a release
rated for older ages: [1] Though I will caution that a lot of these
are either self-reported by the authors or just guesstimates by the
person who added the VN to VNDB.
And I will caution that you should never trust it when a visual novel
is described as "all ages": For whatever reason, the VN reading
community has settled on using that term when we mean "no explicit
sexual content". Beyond that, anything goes for an "all ages" VN. The
search link above has a minimum age rating of 3+ for that reason
URI [1]: https://vndb.org/v?q=&ch=&f=02N1802a48a23N19a38&s=26y
woctordho wrote 8 hours 25 min ago:
If you prefer JS to Python, there's also WebGAL
URI [1]: https://github.com/OpenWebGAL/WebGAL
TazeTSchnitzel wrote 5 hours 37 min ago:
Trying the demo of this on my phone, there are already several kinds
of jank, and one of the lines got cut off so I couldn't read it. I
think that's a bad sign.
Animats wrote 9 hours 7 min ago:
It's a player, like Flash.
What does it do that Flash didn't?
woctordho wrote 8 hours 57 min ago:
It has a DSL specified for writing VNs
ge96 wrote 9 hours 38 min ago:
Hehe I've come across this tech from xxx games
Edit: I don't have the patience for these games but yeah I've seen the
name before
RototRobot wrote 9 hours 59 min ago:
I've made two 'games' with ren'py in the past, and it's really fun
engine to work in and quite an amazing engine as it can be used for the
most basic straight forward game with little programming experience but
also scales up to some pretty complex stuff if you have the means.
nurettin wrote 11 hours 11 min ago:
I've always wondered if LLMs will slowly seep into this backyard. They
are perfectly capable of creating the story (will probably be mid,
barely interesting), the art (albeit easily recognized as AI slop) and
the code (after some iterations) and with some tooling, even sign and
deploy to websites all fully automated.
woctordho wrote 8 hours 21 min ago:
VNs are interesting to AI developers because they're multimodal
datasets with extensive text annotations. People are already working
on this
URI [1]: https://huggingface.co/datasets/Limour/b-corpus
unreal37 wrote 9 hours 36 min ago:
GenAI is becoming popular for image generation to add visuals to the
novel.
cwiz wrote 10 hours 43 min ago:
They might take it with storm and we see influx or high quality
stories that can't be distinguished from those written by nips.
brianbest101 wrote 13 hours 38 min ago:
The game engine thatâs probably kickstarted more game dev careers
than most. I remember when 4chan came together to produce the
surprisingly good Katawa Shoujo with it. Wild times
philipov wrote 14 hours 40 min ago:
I just picked up Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog, which launched on steam
this week, and was made with RenPy. It's going great so far. Some of
the lore reminds me a lot of Martian Successor Nadesico.
URI [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2118420/Stories_from_Sol_Th...
VectorLock wrote 14 hours 53 min ago:
If you look on SteamDB PyGame and Ren'Py are the 5th and 6th most used
technologies, ahead of Godot. [1] Some people point out this is mainly
because of the erotic novel shovelware that is quite popular on Steam.
URI [1]: https://steamdb.info/tech/
AdamH12113 wrote 19 hours 2 min ago:
If you're wondering what's up with the name, "Ren'Py" is a pun on the
Japanese word "ren'ai" (ææ), which means "romantic love".
baobabKoodaa wrote 18 hours 42 min ago:
And at the risk of stating the obvious, Py is for Python and Ren is
for Render
TazeTSchnitzel wrote 17 hours 50 min ago:
The âRenâ part is surely coincidence, it doesn't really make
sense.
baobabKoodaa wrote 10 hours 19 min ago:
"Render your visual novel with Python"?
TazeTSchnitzel wrote 5 hours 36 min ago:
It's a game engine, not a rendering tool.
baobabKoodaa wrote 4 hours 12 min ago:
Hmmh, you're right: "Ren" doesn't stand for "Render" here.
lelandfe wrote 19 hours 21 min ago:
Some really cool stuff has been built with Ren'Py. A (fairly) recent
example for me is Roadwarden, a 20hr long RPG.
programd wrote 16 hours 36 min ago:
I was wondering what it was built with as I was playing. Roadwarden
is tripple-A storytelling and world building masquerading as a little
indie title. I was very impressed by how much atmosphere it conveys
with minimalistic presentation. That takes a lot of skill.
Here it is on Steam, currently on sale for a criminally under priced
$4.39
URI [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1155970/Roadwarden/
loufe wrote 11 hours 43 min ago:
Agreed, Roadwarden is an absolute gem and has earned two full
playthroughs from me. It's such a compelling experience for a
text-based game, it feels especially so as I'm not old enough to
have a nostalgic appreciation for text games.
alt187 wrote 19 hours 21 min ago:
I really wish they'd implement proper XDG stuff, because the engine is
great and I love VNs but all I can think about is the ~/.renpy
littering my home.
bbkane wrote 1 hour 44 min ago:
The battle for HOME was lost years ago unfortunately. Best to just
accept defeat and enjoy the apps
Frotag wrote 19 hours 31 min ago:
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 multiple endings determined by a handful of
choices you get during the story. On occasion, some games go for
sandbox-style gameplay where you roam the map to grind out currency to
unlock visual novel scenes.
In terms of genre I'd say at least half are dating sims, with the rest
being some kind of adventure or mystery story. I'd also guess at least
half are nsfw / r18. Renpy VNs tend to be made by indie devs from
everywhere but Japan, which has a VN industry with in-house engines.
Writing quality tends to be what you expect from indie authors / devs.
That is, filled with tropes, tending towards the wish-fulfillment
types. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, you'll be surprised what
you'd be willing to overlook if the premise / plot seems interesting.
soraminazuki wrote 10 hours 45 min ago:
Baldr Sky is a perfect title for those who also want some action
gaming in the mix. Also, like many great visual novels, the plot
takes advantage of multiple endings very well.
Unfortunately, Japan stopped making visual novels somewhere around a
decade ago. Creators presumably moved on to work on gacha games. Many
visual novel companies are now either gone, inactive, or pivoted to
gacha games. I wish I can see more games like Baldr Sky, Steins Gate,
and Aiyoku no Eustia again.
Blackthorn wrote 14 hours 6 min ago:
The most popular VN is a massive franchise: Phoenix Wright.
RobotToaster wrote 9 hours 44 min ago:
And danganronpa
cardanome wrote 17 hours 2 min ago:
The Spooktober Visual Novel jam that happens every September is a
good way to both get into VN development and also find high quality
games that you can play for free on itch.io.
Some if the entries really push the limits in terms visual
presentation and can have a crazy amounts of animations. Plus really
talented voice actors use the jam to practice their skills.
joaohaas wrote 18 hours 58 min ago:
>~novella sized stories
laughs in umineko and higurashi
GloriousKoji wrote 17 hours 22 min ago:
cries in seagulls, cicadas and storks
jsheard wrote 19 hours 26 min ago:
> 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.
Frotag wrote 17 hours 21 min ago:
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] [2]
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 â Koihime... 6744 CatSystem2
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni 6626
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