Simplified Ren'py Tutorial

This Ren'py Tutorial for beginners shows you how you can utilize Ren'py for visual novels or other narrative games, using this 44 line sample game!
Download the Sample Script here:
github.com/VimislikArt/renpy_...
00:00 Introduction
00:35 Text, Dialogue, Music
02:25 Images + Simple Animation
05:03 What Ren'py is Doing
05:52 Control Flow
07:12 Some Math is Involved
11:05 Put it All Together!
Visit www.vimislikart.com to check out my Visual Novels and other projects!

[@primaryhoodies6386]

I decided to turn the webcomic I was planning into a visual novel. And I’m so grateful for these tutorials, because while I have the art/writing down I get completely lost at coding. It’s very well explained and thank god for copy pasting. Thank you!!!!

[@primaryhoodies6386]

Update: after hours of trying to make an original dialogue scene with my own sprites/background I finally got one working (with 0 copy paste!) and god it’s so satisfying to play it. Even if it’s just one question. It’s definitely motivated me to keep going and make a game.

[@bigdavebaby]

@@primaryhoodies6386 Lol it’s actually the opposite for me, I’m horrible at the art and not bad at the writing, but the coding is where I excel, if you needed help with anything lmk!

[@Jin_Kai]

As he was talking about name and then their dialog I was surprised with how that's how I wrote my first novels character dialog with how their expressions are in parenthesis so the reader can understand their reactions and gestures 😂

[@escapefr0mslender]

I'm the exact same!! It was so hard to write for and just a series of boss battles anyway, so i'm going to turn those boss battles into little fights in renpy idk how to explain

[@Terrorose]

This is actually a very good explanation of renpy codes. Excellent!

[@vimi]

Thank you!

[@MageSkeleton]

i'm glad you found this helpful, this "tutorial" is overwhelming and goes into things that seem irrelevant to what i want a tutorial for as a beginner looking to use RenPy.

[@mateoomar23]

You're already a lifesaver bro. While I don't know how to use/adapt most of the code you let us borrow, the parts that I did know how to use miraculously fixed an image-rendering problem I've been trying to solve for like 12 hours. So thank you.

[@chainsaw1333]

as someone who is beginning to make a visual novel, this is so helpful and easy to understand. keep up the good work!!

[@shaynsnyolo]

Man you simplified renpy for me thanks hope this channel grows a lot 💯

[@vimi]

I hope so too!

[@catsandbooksforever5672]

After a tough break getting back into making my own visual novels. These tutorials are simple, easy and get to the point. They've helped me a lot to the point I think I might actually finish one of my ideas this time.

[@nocoarto]

The more i think about it the more amazing Renpy games that i've played! I simply amaze by their determination to make games, it's very cool!

[@vimi]

It's a cool engine, and a cool community!

[@danebirbhaha7520]

This is a godsent, creating a visual novel is one of my dreams, and while im a decent artist and writer, i haven't programmed in my life (well, i know the basics of html)

[@chibixchan4425]

This video and this channel is what I needed ☆ the video is fun and easy to follow! Thanks☆

[@Gleamiarts]

Thanks for the tutorial! You really break it down so easily :D

[@vimi]

No problem! Just glad to help!

[@ms0jakson]

I really needed it like 4 years ago and there were only old documentations. Thank you so much! It really helps a lot. Sub of course

[@vimi]

You're welcome! I agree, the documentation can be pretty diffcult to parse, especially for people coming in without a developer background - I'm really making a strong effort to demystify the whole programming process!

[@ms0jakson]

@@vimi We all are grateful! Videos are very clear, very well described and everything seems so easy with it! Please keep it up! haha :D

[@xXTSUDORIXx]

Your vids have been super helpful while I'm relearning how to code lol I decided to turn my novel into a webcomic, and then the webcomic into a Visual Novel with RenPy. Kind of like an Otome game, because romance, but darker. Thanks so much!

[@NeilRoy]

I have used various versions of Python (the language RenPY uses) in various game engines and I have to say, after years (decades) of programming in C, I rather enjoy Python/RenPY. It's a very nice language, super easy to use. There's tons of RenPY stuff out there to learn from (I like examining other people's code mostly). Searching for Python information helps as well. I just got one looking for a Switch function in python (it's a C function that if similar to the whole "if, else" etc... only more efficient) and Python doesn't have it, but it has some nice alternatives. Anyhow, nice little video, good advice.

[@vimi]

It's a fun language! Lot's of weird learning curves, because so many people are coming in with little to no programming knowledge, but it's always interesting seeing people's different solutions to Ren'py implementation!

[@NeilRoy]

@@vimi Yeah, knowing C programming helps with learning most other languages as many owe their existence to C. I noticed Python is more text based, which is perfect for RenPY games. It's been pretty easy for me to learn, I recognize a lot of things in it from C. It's just learning the differences and understanding that Python/RenPY are scripting languages as opposed to C which is compiled.

[@MageSkeleton]

i'm glad everyone else finds this helpful, i don't understand how. This "tutorial" is overwhelming and goes into things i really don't care about and seems to explain nothing i want to learn. However, if i was "seasoned" and knew the basics of how to use RenPy and potentially had experience with how to make a basic game i am sure i would find this helpful.

[@vimi]

What is this not covering that you're looking to learn?

[@anthonyschwartz1084]

Thank you for the content! Subbed! Hopefully I can finally actually finish a game lol

[@vimi]

Best of luck on your journey!

[@shirowolfu8284]

Thank You Very Much !!

[@yalcinozc]

Underrated video... Thank you for the code and for the explanation.

[@vimi]

Thank you! I'm trying my best to graduate from "underrated" to "overrated"!

[@yalcinozc]

@@vimi GOOD LUCK! LOL

[@whatnofooddoestoanmf]

THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO- I've been trying to wrap my head around renpy and this is really helpful TwT✨ I have a question tho, I dont quite understand what the read me text is for and if it's really necessary to add some licensing stuff?

[@vimi]

From the sample script I put on github? I think I pressed some checkbox I didn't mean to, and github added it 😅 It's not necessary!

[@whatnofooddoestoanmf]

@@vimi oh no I meant in like the policy thing on renpy you need to add a readme text saying we needed to add a license?? So I was wondering if adding a license was optional or not (^w^;;)

[@bigmanlax8004]

Thank you

[@kizz06]

You are the best.

[@Imirui]

The man did an irl pog for learning renpy

[@jospkmnmk4759]

Thanks you deserve more subs

[@vimi]

I'll try to keep up my quality so I'll always deserve that comment 🥰

[@PasseggeroOscuro]

Hi VimislikArt, I discovered your channel and it's very useful. Will you make a video about minigames made only with Renpy? (if it is possible)

[@vimi]

Yup! My first Visual Novel, King of the Cul-de-sac, was chockful of minigames, my next Visual Novel will have a few, and I'll probably make a video that just shows minigames I've made! The only trouble is, so many people want to see the code for these things, and it's not always cleaned up and documented for other devs, and I don't have time to rewrite that kind of stuff, so when I make a minigame video, it will probably just show 3-4 basic coding concepts, and show how to combine, arrange, and contexturalize them to make dozens of different minigames!

[@PasseggeroOscuro]

​@@vimi It looks really cool! I look forward to the day you release the video. In the meantime, I continue to follow you and learn. Thank you so much for the passion and the content you gift!

[@rawoo9385]

Thanks for all this content, it's really helpful, except for the screaming coach part that was terrible, I'll have to rewatch the whole video 5 times for my brain to work again but very helpfull channel

[@vimi]

there's a reason i have not used the coach again lol

[@corimyers4985]

Would it be possible to do a tutorial on quest systems?

[@celescole9918]

Hello! Thank you for the amazing tutorial! I am curious about how variables behave when the player rolls back to a choice. Does it rollback the code as well? Like, for example, I always give one "good" and one "evil" choice to the players and every time the player chooses one of them I add +1 to "evil" or "good" variables. If the player changes their mind and goes back and picks the other option, does the variable of the initially chosen option go back to the before choice value?

[@vimi]

If you use the variables functionality like I've shown here, it should roll back the user choice and consequences; if they roll back, past where they made a "good" choice, then that variable gets a value removed from it.

[@celescole9918]

@@vimi Thank you so much! That helps a lot!

[@vatosflokos3290]

Excellent tutorial. But I had to set playback speed at x 0.5. You are too fast for me :-)

[@vimi]

I'll try to slow down for my next tutorial!

[@FuzzyImages]

I wanted to see how I would understand your script just looking at it before you went through, and I love the silly elif in question select that in three arguments basically just means "Two". XD

[@vimi]

I had to find a few ways to sneak a lot of ideas in a couple lines of code 🥵

[@FuzzyImages]

@@vimi Yeah I understood that after watching you explain it. without context it just seemed like a funny joke at first. ^^;

[@markmalevolent9384]

Wow. Um... I feel dumb af now because everyone else is commenting on how much this helped and I still don't even understand where to start.

[@vimi]

Start here: www.renpy.org/latest.html

[@ChelissaMoon]

Be patient with yourself. It’s not a contest in speed. I think watching the CS50 python course or playing with an app like Mimo can help a lot. I’ve been doing that recently unrelated to this, and I noticed it helped me understand some of what was going on here. Good luck.

[@Henjin_]

Thank you! this help so much but the only problem that I am having is what kind of coding software to use any recommendations on what to use??

[@vimi]

Stick with whatever your ren'py launcher is recommending , and open your scripts directly through your launcher!

[@AnLaggy]

Thanks for the tutorial, but dam 5:15 scared me xD

[@vimi]

on retrospect, it was a bit much

[@I.G.D.R]

haha copy / paste 🤣 thank you for the Tutorial ! I have been learning different visual novel engines ( working with visual novel maker at the moment ) but I have been wanting to learn Ren'py

[@vimi]

It's worth trying out! I'm also expanding my horizons with some other engines!

[@swi_235]

It was really helpfull but i want to ask is theres any way to change the size or scale of the textbox/dialogue box ??

[@vimi]

Yup! I cover a lot of that in my GUI customization video, but this part of the ren'py documentation covers most of the basics - these are all adjustments that can be made directly in the GUI.rpy file - www.renpy.org/doc/html/gui.html?highlight=textbox#dialogue

[@MarkwithK]

Hi! can I use the "jump" cmnd to jump another rpy file? ie. day2.rpy(the cmnd distination) day1.pry(the cmnd departion)

[@vimi]

Yup! If you type in "jump" followed by the label name, it will parse all of the rpy files to find the label you need to jump to! I like to arrange my game so each big chunk of my game is placed in a new rpy file, so it's easy for me to parse!

[@streetchronicles9025]

Hello, how often would you say the library undergoes significant updates? Another way to ask the question would be how old is too old for renpy documentation/tutorials?

[@vimi]

For the most part, the dev team has been working hard at making sure most of the script remains consistent across different versions and updates! For instance, the basics I'm covering in this tutorial, have remained relatively unchanged for 15 years! The biggest difference for each new release of ren'py will be new features and QOL updates. These don't depreciate old code, but give you more options for solutions, or let you write things more succinctly.

[@thatdlboiys5991]

I'm new to Renpy, but is there a code that will start your sentence at the bottom of the previous sentence, for example, using short words like "us, I and we" becomes stuck at the top when I want it to begin at the bottom.

[@vimi]

You want to use the tag "extend" instead of the character name, like in the example below: www.renpy.org/doc/html/dialogue.html#special-characters

[@DistrarSubvoyikar]

Do the tag and attribute really need to be in lowercase for Renpy to function [correctly], or is that just a style standard devs are expected to follow for style consistency? Asking because it always looks weird to me to have a character name not capitalized, so i'm capitalizing the character names but unsure if that's gonna screw me over once i get a desktop computer someday to run the Renpy code i'm writing a first draft of on mobile lol

[@vimi]

With images, ren'py forces all images into lowercase. If you write "Eileen" instead of "eileen", it will break. If you need to rewrite the code later on though, you can do a simple "replace all" command in your text editor.

[@DistrarSubvoyikar]

@@vimi Alright then. Thanks for the info!

[@joony02]

Hi, what software is that you use to write? I'm using writter (libre office) but it''s a total mess

[@vimi]

Here I'm using Atom Editor, but now I use Visual Studio Code.

[@joony02]

@@vimi your screen is so pretty, I donwloaded this Visual Studio Code, but everything is black/white. I guess it's gonna be a hard time haha. Thank you for you efforts.

[@Cupdev]

when i put the code of the music it doesn't play. i put the code in correctly. is my renpy bugged or is there something im missing?

[@vimi]

I'd have to see the code to know for sure! A likely culprit is that the audio file isn't being referred to correctly. If the audio is anywhere other than the base game folder, it needs to have the file folder in the file name, like ""audio/sound.wav". Ren'py can also be a little fiddly with file formats, too - try using an mp3 file, a few different wav formats, and an ogg file, and see if that makes a difference!

[@blackpurplefazbear2601]

You really made a good job with this!..... but..... how do i was ask question?

[@lucasrider4895]

Which coding software did you use with ren'py to be able to commit it to github? I tried xcode but it hates ren'py and visual studio code doesn't like it either. I'm writing a novel but want any future employers to see that im actually working on things with the commits. Thanks in advance.

[@vimi]

You can just manually upload things to github, or you can install an extension to upload directly to github code.visualstudio.com/docs/sourcecontrol/github

[@psychospeech6189]

Hey there! I don't know if you will see this, but I am an extreme newby to Ren'py. I wanted to know if all of the potential gane has to be written in one script or can multiple smaller scripts be used?

[@vimi]

You CAN write it in one script, but if you write it in multiple .rpy files, ren'py will automatically parse all of them for the appropriate code.

[@psychospeech6189]

@vimi yo man thank you so much! Your videos have been really helpful, it gave me the confidence to try my own game

[@ebinfichgachagamingandgang]

Please tell me how making your character / sprites looking left and right please....

[@un-idiot1744]

How do i do the licence thing theres no tutorial

[@danielamorandelgado5885]

i show an imagen at the begining of my dialogues but even before clicking it show the image very fast and skip to the next show I have, do you know why? :(

[@DistrarSubvoyikar]

The show command only draws on the screen, it doesn't include anything about pausing. If you want the game to pause after it, you have to put a command or statement after it (on the next line, that is) that either wait for player interaction, such as a line of dialogue or renpy.input( ) (which is used for getting typed input like player name), or put the wait command (which takes a time parameter in decimal seconds, like wait 0.1 to wait one tenth of a second) If you're doing a basic self-made animation, it will be show commands alternating with wait commands, like for example show protag happy wait 0.1 show protag jumping wait 0.1 show protag airborne wait 0.1 or whatever

[@gregorycook9817]

What do you use for your code?

[@vimi]

I use Visual Studio Code now, but in this video I was using Atom Editor.

[@juliannaquino-torres2742]

I understand what im looking now at but still feel confused (maybe it was because there was alot info) , your other videos are good tho like writing one it helped alot .

[@vimi]

It takes a bit of time to really feel comfortable with it, but the more you code with it, the more natural it feels!

[@juliannaquino-torres2742]

@@vimi after 3 hours i got it, and this video helped

[@chodybromo3479]

Learning DAZ, Blender, and Renpy at the same time is becoming a daunting task 😂

[@kashisaccount5059]

I have so much trouble understanding all of this. When it is as simple as adding one or two words to simple commands... I get it. But code becomes so easily tangled in my mind, trying to listen and watch to an explanatory tutorial becomes a real challenge. Anyone here has any recommendations to make it even simpler ? Like explaining to a 5 year old.

[@vimi]

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me, but I've found the best method to learn is to just download ren'py and play with it yourself! A lot of the code I included in here isn't necessary for every game. In some cases, I built in redundancies just to highlight the more commonly used features of ren'py that you can use!

[@kashisaccount5059]

@@vimi As of right now, I don't have a lot going on. I believe I felt very overwhelmed because I was trying to learn everything at once. I do have Ren'Py and I started looking at the codings of the tutorial and The Question, but haven't gotten myself to actually type anything.

[@hzDelta]

welp, down the rabbit hole i go. the project I'm working on is most likely gonna get canned, but here's to trying.

[@_tickets5362]

on my computer and phone it says renpy iisnt safe so i cant use it :(

[@vimi]

Stay safe!

[@depotemkin]

Спасибо за субтитры. Кстати, когда новое видео?

[@CRanunculus]

I launched Renpy for the first time today. I'm an Idiot. I have questions: 1. What editor am I supposed to use? Atom? System Editor? (I selected Atom) 2. Where do I paste your code? I selected script.rpv , but then... 3. I get an "an exception has occurred" error upon clicking the screen one more time after choosing fox or dog in the tutorial's game. Is that supposed to happen because it's a tutorial, or did I paste it wrong?

[@gyrozeppali3734]

Im potato. can you add a little edit on how to use the sample script pretty please

[@vimi]

You can replace "script.rpy" in the ren'py tutorial game with this file, if you need to see it working in-game, but I don't think that's entirely necessary! Instead, I'd recommend copying + pasting whatever chunks of code you need to get your game started. Eventually, you'll figure out the syntax on your own (keep in mind proper indentation!), but a lot of the nitty gritty details you'll only learn by making errors and fixing them on your own!

[@gyrozeppali3734]

@@vimiI got it working, thanks man! Its going to help sooo much messing with something like that. im working my up to date with your older vids, keep it up man! this channel is a literal treasure, and you have a heart of gold. looking forward to being up to date!

[@arctic-sanisgaming8981]

ngl I clicked cause of Taiga. But this was really interesting.

[@RajonBrondo]

What IDE was he using?

[@vimi]

Atom Editor exclusively for this tutorial!

[@curleyds]

"...untill I learned the deep dark secret about the world of programming... Copy and paste! Programmers just pass around bits of code like it's candy or something on Halloween" In the single most sarcastic voice you can imagine: oh no. he found out. our lives will be ruined. aaaaahhh... Anyways guys, anyone know how to make a tree component in Vue.js? I need some code to copy!

[@TheActualJae]

0:18 The devs of world died at this point… whether in indignation or out of recognition of our evil secret…I’ll never know. I’m dead.

[@echosama618]

I can not for the life of me, wrap my head around what a python statement is and what the question tally thing is for.

[@vimi]

"Python" is a computer language we can program with! A "Python statement" is something we're telling the computer to do in that language. The "$" mark means "we're using Python code, not Ren'py script". For the question tally, we're using Python code to tell the computer to define a value, and when we tell it to, to increase that value!

[@echosama618]

@@vimi That definitely helped. But why would we need to increase a value, what does it mean to increase or decrease it?

[@vimi]

​@@echosama618 If we want to have any record of player decisions that we can use later, we need to save that information as a variable. If you want to see some some of them in action, check out my Day/Night video, and my RPG battle engine video!

[@echosama618]

@@vimi oohhh, that makes sense. Thank you for explaining, it really helped a lot! I definitely will check those videos out, I have a lot to learn! :D I'm really glad you make videos on this topic lol, it's helped a lot of people I'm sure.

[@thatdlboiys5991]

Thank you for that information. However, this is not what I am looking for. example: "words words words words words words. I thought that was helpful" as you can see the "I" is stuck at the top i want to start at the bottom. "words words words words words words. I thought that was helpful" i tried using the "vspace" but it has noticeable gap even at 0.

[@vimi]

use "/n" (backslash+n) whenever you want a line break.

[@thatdlboiys5991]

Thank you! that's what I needed. and it's " " by the way.

[@notyaniecetv]

What’s crazy is that I code… but I can’t draw LOL irony

[@MxVerdaArt]

The script worked until she said 'very... sleepy....'

[@vimi]

Before, after, or during that line? How did the script not work; was it an error, or was there something on screen you didn't expect? I just tested the code on my side, and the only issue was that the .ogg music file isn't in a new project, so that causes it to crash; remove that part of the code, and it should be good.

[@MxVerdaArt]

Just clicking through, nothin' fancy. Yup! It mostly works now. She says 'I'm a dog!', the background goes tiny, and then it just ends. @@vimi Looking at the code, it seems like that's what should be happening

[@salvatoreharan]

Why did you have one of the most important parts of the video be in a silly screamy voice I couldn't understand

[@vimi]

'Cause it was my first video and I didn't know any better 😭 -- but I did make sure to add captions to this one myself, so they should be accurate!

[@salvatoreharan]

@@vimi bless

[@ibexy]

How do you distribute a renpy game?

[@vimi]

When you build the game, it will export as a zip file, which you can distribute on a number of storefronts. Itch.io is the most common one indie devs use, and others use steam, but the Apple store and Google play stores are also options.

[@ibexy]

@@vimi 👍