# Ren'Py

The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine (or RenPy for short) is a free software game engine which facilitates the creation of visual novels. Ren'Py is a portmanteau of ren'ai (恋愛), 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

List of notable games created in Ren'Py :
| Title | Genre(s) | Developer(s) | Publisher(s) | Release date | Platform | Platform | Platform | Platform | Platform |
| Title | Genre(s) | Developer(s) | Publisher(s) | Release date | And | iOS | LX | Mac | Win |
| Analogue: A Hate Story | Visual novel | Love Conquers All Games | Christine Love | September 22, 2017 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Black Closet | Visual novel, Strategy RPG, Life simulation | Hanako Games | Hanako Games | September 16, 2015 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Butterfly Soup | Visual novel, Romantic comedy | Brianna Lei | Brianna Lei | September 16, 2017 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Café 0: The Drowned Mermaid | Visual novel, Mystery | ROSEVERTE | ROSEVERTE | October 4, 2011 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Coming Out on Top | Visual novel, Dating sim | Obscurasoft | Obscurasoft | December 10, 2014 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Date Warp | Visual novel, Science fiction | Spiky Caterpillar, Hanako Games | Hanako Games | May 22, 2010 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| A Date with Death | Visual novel, Dating sim | Two and a Half Studios | Two and a Half Studios | December 7, 2023 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Digital: A Love Story | Visual novel | Love Conquers All Games | Christine Love | February 28, 2010 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Doki Doki Literature Club! | Visual novel, Dating sim, Horror | Team Salvato | Team Salvato | September 22, 2017 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story | Visual novel | Love Conquers All Games | Christine Love | April 4, 2011 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Doomed Love | Point-and-click, Dating simulator, Visual novel, Fangame | David B. Cooper | David B. Cooper | June 11, 2021 | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Dysfunctional Systems series | Visual novel | Dischan Media | Dischan Media | April 4, 2013 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Exogenesis: Perils of Rebirth demo | Adventure game, Visual novel, Sci-fi | Kwan | Sekai Project | April 19, 2019 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fatal Hearts | Visual novel, Adventure game, Otome | Hanako Games | Hanako Games | October 23, 2007 | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Fault Milestone One | Visual novel | Alice in Dissonance | Sekai Project | August 12, 2013 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fault Milestone Two | Visual novel | Alice in Dissonance | Sekai Project | August 16, 2015 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Flower Shop series | Visual novel | Winter Wolves | Winter Wolves | February 1, 2010 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Heart of the Woods | Visual novel | Studio Élan | Studio Élan | February 15, 2019 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Heileen series | Visual novel | Tycoon Games | Tycoon Games | October 21, 2008 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Juniper's Knot | Visual novel | Dischan Media | Dischan Media | April 4, 2013 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Katawa Shoujo | Visual novel, Nakige | Four Leaf Studios | Four Leaf Studios | January 4, 2012 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ladykiller in a Bind | Visual novel, Eroge, Romantic comedy | Love Conquers All Games | Christine Love | October 10, 2016 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Long Live the Queen | Visual novel, RPG, Political simulation | Spiky Caterpillar, Hanako Games | Hanako Games | June 2, 2012 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Loren the Amazon Princess | RPG, Visual novel, Fantasy | Winter Wolves | Winter Wolves | April 30, 2012 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Magical Diary | Visual novel, Fantasy, Otome | Spiky Caterpillar, Hanako Games | Hanako Games | June 19, 2011 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk series | Visual novel | Nikita Kryukov | Missing Calm | August 26, 2020 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Momotype | Visual novel, Digital pet | Rimatoad | Rimatoad | December 3, 2021 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| One Night Stand | Visual novel | Kinmoku | Kinmoku | October 20, 2016 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Planet Stronghold | Visual novel, RPG, Sci-fi | Winter Wolves | Winter Wolves | February 28, 2011 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raptor Boyfriend | Visual novel, Dating sim | Rocket Adrift | Rocket Adrift | July 15, 2021 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Royal Trap | Visual novel | Hanako Games | Hanako Games | February 23, 2013 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Scarlet Hollow | Visual novel, Horror | Black Tabby Games | Black Tabby Games | June 11, 2021 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Slay the Princess | Visual novel, Horror | Black Tabby Games | Black Tabby Games | October 23, 2023 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Summer Session | Dating sim | Hanako Games, Tycoon Games | Hanako Games, Tycoon Games | July 2, 2008 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tales of Aravorn: Seasons of the Wolf | Visual novel, RPG, Fantasy | Winter Wolves | Winter Wolves | November 15, 2014 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Vera Blanc series | Visual novel, Mystery | Winter Wolves | Winter Wolves | June 30, 2010 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |