Name: RenPy Tutorial for Beginners | Create a Visual Novel Game with Ren'Py
Uploaded: 2025-04-09T18:43:38.000Z
Duration: 8 min 2 s
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So you want to learn Ren'Py? Ren'Py is a game engine for making visual novels.

Transition words & phrases

It is very easy to use because almost everything is handled. This includes save files, history, pause menu, and even options.

Adverbs of manner

Basically everything visual novels have. All you have to do is create the script and you're done. In this video,

I'll teach you about dialogue, character, sprite, background, background music, sound effects, choices, label, and flags.

Before we do all that, let me show you the Ren'Py launcher.

This is where we can create our Ren'Py game and release it.

We can also open our folders and scripts from here. The folders are located under the open directory section, while the scripts are listed under the edit file section.

You can download the launcher from Ren'Py's official website. The links can also be found in the description.

With that out of the way, let's create a new project.

Click the create new project button. The launcher will inform you that the language will be in English and it can be changed later.

Let's click continue. Let's input our project name and click continue.

In this tutorial, we'll be using 1280x720 screen resolution. More users are using bigger screen resolution than the default.

So if you want to release a project, it's better to go for bigger screen resolution, especially if you're releasing on desktop computers. Let's click continue.

The final step of setting up is to select the color theme we want to use.

Note that this can be changed later in the Ren'Py launcher.

Then the new project will appear under the project section.

Let's launch the app to see the default behavior.

You've created a new Ren'Py game. Once you add a story, pictures, and music, you can release it to the world.

Then the game ends. Before we start with the code, let's import our images and music. The assets can be found in itch.io. I've added the link in the description.

Let's open our main script, which is script.rpy. This is where the default code can be found. Let's delete those.

I've created a story and divided it into guides. We'll convert each guide into a Ren'Py script.

Let's start with a dialogue guide. To create a narration, let's put the narration line inside two double quotations.

To create a line with the speaker, the speaker's name should be inside two double quotations before the speaker's line.

If you want to create a line with double quotes, we should add a backslash before the quotes.

This tells our computers that we're not ending the line yet, and we're just using quotes in our dialogue.

I pasted some codes which contains parts we already discussed. I did this so we can go over the topics faster.

In the sprites label, we've already added a dialogue. We just need to add the sprites.

You will notice that we were using a specific name format. The first word is a tag and the words after it are attributes.

So in ZayleDelighted.png, Zayle is our tag and Delighted is our attribute.

To show a character sprite, let's code showZayleDelighted.

This will show ZayleDelighted.png as shown in the preview.

If we show the same tag with a different attribute, the first image will be replaced.

We can show the character in other positions. Let's show the random girl on the right side by adding at right in the code.

We can also hide the random girl by coding hide.

File names are forced to be in lowercase and the file extensions are removed.

The supported file formats for character art are PNG and WebP.

The images can be inside any subdirectory of images folder. You are not required to specify the exact location in the code.

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Back to the tutorial, let's talk about characters. With characters, we can set the character name, name color, image tag, voice tag, and many more.

We created a character with the name Zale and a pink text color.

To use this, replace the speaker name with a character name. In the preview, you'll notice that Zale's name is in pink.

To show our background, let's code scene followed by the name of the background.

Background also uses the same name format as sprites.

By convention, background images should use the tag BG.

We can add transitions such as fade and dissolve. This is applicable for all images.

We can also replace the background by using show. They are different such that show only replaces the background while scene also removes everything that is visible.

To play a background music, let's code play music followed by the file name.

Unlike images, audio files require the whole file path and file extension. We can set a fade in and fade out transition for the audio.

Playing a music by default sets the music to be looped. We can stop the music by coding stop music. If you want to use a variety of background music, you can queue the next music.

The supported file formats are .opus, .ogg, and .mp3. To play a sound effect, let's code play sound followed by the file name. Unlike background music, sound effects do not loop by default.

It's time to make choices. Menu is used for coding choices. In visual novels, choosing different actions may lead to different results.

To create a menu, let's code menu followed by a colon.

After this, enter a new line and add an indent by pressing tab. This tells our computer that the codes indented are used in the code before it.

In our case, it is used for menu. I've already added my choices which are yes and dot dot dot. This will display the menu just like in the preview.

Let's handle the actions next. If the player chooses yes, it should skip to choices 1A. If the player chooses dot dot dot, it should skip to choices 1B. To do that, let's create a jump to A and B.

There is still a problem. After A, it will go to B. To prevent that, let's add another jump to choices 1 common. Let's also add a jump in B to common. It's not needed now, but it's good to make our code future-proof.

There are visual novels where you can't play a route without playing a specific route. This is handled by a flag. Flags are mostly used to identify if something is true or false. It can also be used for player stats.

In our story, we want Dale to speak a different dialogue depending on the player's choice. Let's add a default learned and set it to false.

Once the player chooses yes, we want to set learned to true. In the result, our code should display the first dialogue if learned is true. Otherwise, it should display the second dialogue by coding else.

So in the preview, you'll see that yes will result to the first dialogue, and dot dot dot will result to the second dialogue.

There you have it! You've just learned the basics of creating a visual novel with Ren'Py. If you have questions, feel free to ask in the comment section.

Lastly, if you want to see more game development content like this, please subscribe and like the video.