Ren'Py
Game engine for the creation of visual novels
title: "Ren'Py" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["2004-software", "free-game-engines", "free-software-programmed-in-python", "free-software-that-uses-sdl", "python-(programming-language)-scriptable-game-engines", "ren'py-games", "software-development-kits", "software-using-the-mit-license", "video-game-development-software", "video-game-development-software-for-linux", "video-game-engines", "visual-novel-engines"] description: "Game engine for the creation of visual novels" topic_path: "technology/software-engineering" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren'Py" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Game engine for the creation of visual novels ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine |
| logo | Ren’Py Logo 6-13-6 200x307px.png |
| logo size | 100px |
| logo caption | Ren'Py's mascot, Eileen, surrounded by a python |
| screenshot | Wikipe-tan visual novel (Ren'Py).png |
| screenshot size | 240px |
| caption | An example of a Ren'Py-created scene |
| author | Tom "PyTom" Rothamel |
| developer | Tom "PyTom" Rothamel |
| released | |
| latest release version | 8.4.1 |
| latest release date | |
| programming language | Python, Cython |
| middleware | |
| operating system | Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Android, iOS |
| size | 115 MB |
| language | English for the engine – UTF-8 use for resulting programs |
| genre | Game engine (visual novel) |
| license | MIT |
| website | |
| :: |
| name = Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine | logo = Ren’Py Logo 6-13-6 200x307px.png | logo size = 100px | logo caption = Ren'Py's mascot, Eileen, surrounded by a python | screenshot = Wikipe-tan visual novel (Ren'Py).png | screenshot size = 240px | caption = An example of a Ren'Py-created scene | author = Tom "PyTom" Rothamel | developer = Tom "PyTom" Rothamel | released = | latest release version = 8.4.1 | latest release date = | programming language = Python, Cython | middleware = | operating system = Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Android, iOS | size = 115 MB | language = English for the engine – UTF-8 use for resulting programs | genre = Game engine (visual novel) | license = MIT | website =
The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine (or RenPy for short) is a free and open-source game engine which facilitates the creation of visual novels. Ren'Py is a portmanteau of ren'ai, the Japanese word for 'romantic love', a common element of games made using Ren'Py; and Python, the programming language that Ren'Py runs on.
Features
Ren'Py includes the ability to create branching stories, save file systems, rollback to previous points in the story, a variety of scene transitions, DLC, and so on. The engine also allows for movie playback for both full-screen movies and animated sprites, in-engine animation (using the built in "Animation and Translation Language", or ATL), and full animation and customization of UI elements via "Screen Language". Ren'Py scripts have a screenplay-like syntax, and can also include blocks of Python code to allow advanced users to add new features of their own. In addition, tools are included in the engine distribution to obfuscate scripts and archive game assets to mitigate copyright infringement.
Ren'Py is built on pygame, which is built with Python on SDL. The Ren'Py SDK is officially supported on Windows, recent versions of macOS, and Linux; and can be installed via the package managers of the Arch Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo (in experimental overlay) Linux distributions. Ren'Py can build games for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, OpenBSD, iOS, and HTML5 with WebAssembly.
Reception
Ren'Py has been recommended as a video game creation engine by several outlets, including Indie Games Plus, MakeUseOf, PC Gamer, and The Guardian. It has been used in classes at Carnegie Mellon School of Art, Faculty of Art at University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kampar, Perak, Malaysia, and as a tool for information literacy.
Notable games
::data[format=table title="List of notable games created in Ren'Py"]
References
Notes Citations
References
- "Art Card Information".
- Lin, Maria. (December 2005). "Returning the Love: Three Fans Taking the Next Step".
- "License".
- "The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine". Ren'Py.
- "Writing Visual Novels with Ren'Py: The Ren'Py Tutorial". Ren'Py.
- "Building Distributions". Ren'Py.
- "Why Ren'Py?". Ren'Py.
- "Installing Ren'Py on Gentoo Linux".
- "games/renpy".
- "Ren'Py 6.99".
- D., Konstantinos. (8 May 2012). "Indie Tools: Ren'Py".
- Wiesehan, Robert. (7 July 2014). "Learn To Make Your Own Visual Novels With Ren'Py, Or Play One Of These".
- (2 April 2020). "The best engines for making your own visual novel".
- Stuart, Keith. (20 March 2014). "How to get into the games industry – an insiders' guide".
- "Experimental Game Design".
- (2014-11-01). "Adventures in Research Creating a video game textbook for an information literacy course". College & Research Libraries News.
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::