Visual Novel Renp'y Tutorial: Entry

Hey everyone!

In the poll, starting from the basics to advanced was chosen, so here we go.

I don't want to make individual tutorials for each function. Instead, let's make a small game together going through everything one by one. Because I believe learn-by-doing method is the best!

I plan to add a few things that are not normally in Visual Novels like character customization screen and inventory, so that you don't necessarily have to stick with a strict VN format.

Although you don't have to add the extra features to your game if you don't want to.

I will attach the game files and all sources I use in this tutorial series. You can download them and take them apart as you like!

It's a long long tutorial, so I'll be posting it in parts.

This one is not a tutorial, just the preface. 

Getting Ready kind of thing.

Entry: 

If you are already familiar with the engine, you can skip this part. I'm only going to be talking about the client and it's functions.

• Starting a new game. 
• Learning the Client and its functions.
• What happens if you press this or that button.

-Starting a new game-

I'm using a Windows10 professional pc, and Ren'py version 7.0.0.196.

It's very important your Renp'y version is up to date, as we will use some of the new features.

You can download and install the latest version of Renp'y Visual Novel Engine here. 

Open up the renpy.exe in the file you downloaded from renpy.org.

(renpy.dmg if you are using Mac)

We will go through everything on here one by one when the time comes. For now, just click on Create a New Project.

Choose English as the base language for now, as the tutorial will follow the English language client.

Name your project and click continue.

Choose a resolution you are comfortable with.

I always go for 1920x1080, because the quality of images is everything to me, but if your computer has a small screen, you can choose a smaller resolution here.

I will also tell you how to change your game's resolution manually while we are working on Options script.

Choose a basic color for the GUI (We will definitely change those later on. For now, just choose whatever you are comfortable with.)

Once the processing is done, you will find your project name appear on the Projects section.

1- Your projects.

2- Your game's directory. (Where you store your code/images/sounds etc.)

3- This is the file where your game directory is in. It stores the error log and also the dialogue.txt file if you extract your game's dialogues.

4- Your images directory. That's where you store the images in your game.

5- New GUI images folder. (Graphical user interface)

This was added in one of the new Renp'y versions. I still use the older version in Cardinal Cross and Linen Tale, but for this tutorial we will be using the new GUI.

(The edit files section may ask you which editing program to use for Ren'py, I use "Editra" because it's very simple and efficient imo. I will be using Editra in the tutorial, so I suggest you choose Editra for now.)

6- Your script file. This file is automatically made when you create a new game. It has the "start label" needed for starting the game. You can change the name or keep it as it. Or delete the file. As long as you have a start label written somewhere, you are good.

7- Your game options. Everything from your game resolution to the name of your game is stored here. Don't delete this. I will come back to it later. We can do some really cool stuff in here.

8- Your GUI settings file. This is the where you store your GUI appearance settings. Like the fonts used in certain buttons, the colors, the styles etc. (Again, this is a new feature, so make sure your Renp'y is up to date.)

9- This is where your actual screen settings are. This is where you tell which button to run which function etc.

10- A way to open up all script files in tabs. I don't suggest ever clicking that if you have a lot of script files. Speaking from experience. =(

11- You can check and open up any of your script files here. Though I just use the directory folder. I don't think I ever use this.

12- Check your script for errors. If you have errors, your script file won't work and your game won't start, so this is just to pinpoint exactly why it doesn't. (Though it does have a tendency to give false positives. Don't mind it if your game starts and works just fine.)

13- Update your basic GUI style/color. No need for this, as we will make our custom GUI.

14- Delete persistent is very important. Whenever you change a persistent setting in your game (for example the text speed, or the volume of the music etc.) the change is saved as a persistent data. So when you start a new game you won't lose your persistent data.

Deleting persistent data will return it back to the starting settings. We will use this later on to try our custom persistent settings!

15- Unlike rpy files, rpyc files are not editable. Whenever you are ready to publish your game, you can delete the rpy files from inside your game directory to prevent other people from reading your codes. (Though it's still possible to extract the codes using third party tools, as Ren'py is an open source program. But it still stops some people from accessing to your developer settings easily.)

16- We click this when we are ready to publish our game. For now, we will leave it.

17- Export your game as an APK file for Android phones.

18- IOS export of your game.

19- Creates a file in the language you want to translate your game to and extracts every rpy there for you to translate. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to use it. Hopefully one day!

20- Extracts a txt file that contains every dialogue in your game. Including choices.

21- Starts your game. 

You can start your game and check out how it works for now.

22- Updates the client. 

On part 1, we will start editing our game starting from Options.

If you have specific features you'd like me to add into this tutorial game, let me know here!

I'll see you soon!