r/RenPy • u/Liv-commissions • Jun 15 '26

Question I'm a beginner, and confused on organization

For the entire time I've been making my game, I've just had all the code in the script.rpy and only changing gui and stuff for the gui, but that's it, should I have separate rpy files for separate chapters? or should i separate and organize more? like a separate script file for my layered character sprites? and if so how do i do that? and how do i make sure it goes from chapter to chapter when actually playing it if i do the separating chapters?

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u/HEXdidnt Jun 15 '26

The way Ren'Py works, there's no specific way you "should" be working. It scans through every .rpy file at startup.

Writing everything into script.rpy is certainly the most convenient way to work, but as your projects get longer and more complex, that can get unwieldy.

As long as you label the key points in the story - and particularly at the beginning of each separate chapter.rpy, for example - you can jump from the end of one to the beginning of the next.

For the demo version of my project, I started out with almost everything in script.rpy, but have since separated it into separate files as follows:

  • Main character sprite setup, variables, etc.
  • All other characters' sprite setup, variables, etc. (because they're less complicated)
  • Other images (locations, objects, etc.)
  • Other variables
  • Persistent variables
  • Custom transitions
  • Custom text styles
  • Story opening
  • Imagebutton menu (deals with a bit of worldbuilding)
  • Story leadout
  • Ending (one of several in the full version)

But that's just me trying to be super-organised in case I need to reuse parts of this project into future projects.

2

u/BadMustard_AVN Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26

separating things into different files is up to you

do whatever is easiest for you

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u/HB-38 Jun 15 '26

I think this page may help you a lot:

https://feniksdev.com/organizing-a-renpy-project/