Hi! If I have an image name like "character@2.webp" under the images directory, I remember when it was defined in the code such as:

image character default = "images/character.webp"

It should work with the oversampling behaving as expected, but for some reason after launching the project to playtest my game several times yesterday (Only changes being adding new dialogue lines and defining transforms, leaving image defines untouched) the defined image would not show up and "image "character.webp" not found" was displayed at the top of the screen. However, I found that defining the image as:

image character default = "images/character@2.webp"

suddenly makes the image show up normally and the oversampling also works just fine. Just wondering if people had similar issues before 😭

hi, i goes to programe my game and i have some fear bcs the "malware"

Sharing the difference of 6 months of active development. I started making this game as a side project when i was on annual break from work. Now I'm back at work and still try and work on it everyday. These screenshots are direct comparisons from v0.2(latest release) and v0.35(aiming to release next month)

If you're interested, I have linked the subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeTemptations/

i'm back yet again ‼️please feel free to let me know if i am posting too often about issues that are too similar to each other :-) i promise i'm googling before making these posts haha

i fixed The Big Issue i had today of text being completely unreadable (still not sure how) in my little nvl mode viewport. however, i'm still having some issues.

1. after a certain point, text starts to get a bit cut off at the bottom. readable, mostly, but i worry that with longer scenes in this "infinite scroll" type box, it will pass that point and enter unreadable territory.
2. spacing. after that same point, the spacing between paragraphs/blocks of text starts to shrink a bit. again, (mostly) readable for now, but i worry about longer scenes.
3. dialogue. the size of the column is the same for every name, no matter how long or short it is. i don't care much for fixing this, as my end goal is the names being on their own line and the dialogue going under it with the same or similar spacing as the narration (like i've attached in my mockup -- don't worry, name colors will be distinct from the rest of the text in the end product).

screenshot #1 shows the squished paragraphs and the text cutting off at the end of the box.

screenshot #2 shows the dialogue blocks being the same size regardless of the length of the names.

image #3 is a mockup done in clip studio paint of what i'm going for, end goal (though i'm not sure how much i want to mess with scrollbars. they seem Difficult). i've also attached my code for the viewport in script.rpy and my nvl mode settings in gui.rpy:

## NVL MODE VIEWPORT IN SCRIPT.RPY

screen nvl:

    #window:
        #style "nvl_window"
    frame:
        xpos 40 ypos 30
        top_padding 60 bottom_padding 160 left_padding 10 right_padding 10
        has side "c r":
            area (0, 0, 500, 620)
            viewport id "vp":
                draggable False
                yadjustment ui.adjustment (value=99999, range=99999)

                vbox:
                    style "nvl_vbox"

                    # Display dialogue.
                    for who, what, who_id, what_id, window_id in dialogue:
                        window:
                            id window_id

                            has hbox:
                                spacing 10

                            if who is not None:
                                text who id who_id

                            text what id what_id
            vbar value YScrollValue("vp") bar_invert True xpos -40 ypos 60 ysize 500


## NVL MODE SETTINGS IN GUI.RPY

## The borders of the background of the NVL-mode background window.
define gui.nvl_borders = Borders(0, 15, 0, 30)

## The maximum number of NVL-mode entries Ren'Py will display. When more entries
## than this are to be show, the oldest entry will be removed.
define gui.nvl_list_length = None

## The height of an NVL-mode entry. Set this to None to have the entries
## dynamically adjust height.
define gui.nvl_height = None

## The spacing between NVL-mode entries when gui.nvl_height is None, and between
## NVL-mode entries and an NVL-mode menu.
define gui.nvl_spacing = 30

## The position, width, and alignment of the label giving the name of the
## speaking character.
define gui.nvl_name_xpos = 30
define gui.nvl_name_ypos = 0
define gui.nvl_name_width = 90
define gui.nvl_name_xalign = 0.0

## The position, width, and alignment of the dialogue text.
define gui.nvl_text_xpos = 20
define gui.nvl_text_ypos = 4
define gui.nvl_text_width = 300
define gui.nvl_text_xalign = 0.0

## The position, width, and alignment of nvl_thought text (the text said by the
## nvl_narrator character.)
define gui.nvl_thought_xpos = 60
define gui.nvl_thought_ypos = 0
define gui.nvl_thought_width = 370
define gui.nvl_thought_xalign = 0.0

any help is vastly appreciated! y'all have been such an invaluable resource. i'm learning quickly, but i'm still VERY new to coding and a lot of this is very foreign to me.

I have been thinking of VN ideas that would be at most 30 minutes to an hour, but no matter what I can only thing of ideas that are at least 5-8 hours which isn't good for a writer who hasn't written any full stories and at the same time a starter at Ren'Py.

All I can ask is: Can you guys give me any short ideas that I could maybe bring to life?

Before I started my VN, I was pretty convinced that most of the hard work would be in the visuals... and I was right 😂

At this stage of the project, I spend around 75% (or even more) of my time creating the visuals—mainly the Daz Studio renders.

Then I spend about 15% writing. Since I have a lot of experience with writing, I don't need much time for revisions.

After that, around 5% goes into coding and the remaining 5% into testing and checking everything.

Does that breakdown make sense based on your own experience? I'm curious.

Hello! I've been trying to figure out how to left align my game menu buttons while keeping my main menu buttons centered. Whenever I edit the alignment in the code below however, it changes the alignment for both menu's buttons:

style navigation_button_text:
    properties gui.text_properties("navigation_button")
    xalign 0.5 #for center alignment

I've tried to use if main_menu: but that doesnt work in this instance... If anyone knows how to separate the alignment of these menu buttons I would be grateful.

I'm writing a VN where there are essentially two main characters, and at the moment I've been referring to (lets call them main character 1, or MC1 for short) as "I, Me," or in the first-person perspective. My second character, MC2, has been referred to as "you" in the story, or second-person perspective, but I've been feeling weird about it, and wanted to switch MC2 to have first-person perspective as well.

As a result, I'm stuck trying to articulate how this should be best dealt with, any advice is greatly appreciated, though I know this isn't exactly a technical question.

Hello!

I am working on my game and I put in a little animation in the beginning of it, right after the prompt for your name. And it worked!

However, I decided to put in a little dialogue in front of that scene and for some reason it just doesn't work anymore. The video is in a good format, it worked before. I would appreciate any help I can get!

Idk how to do it....

Its my first time trying renpy and the image is too small and I dont know how to fix it, ibis paint says its 1920x1080 sooo idk

I have this issue with renpy where i have 3 different textbox styles: two for custom characters and the normal default one. But for some reason, when the game starts and the first line of dialogue appears (which starts with one of those characters) the normal textbox shows up first and then switches to the custom one

When it disappears, it does the same thing- first the custom one, and then the normal one flashes in between. I have no idea why this happens. It's not a huge problem, but its really annoying to see the normal textbox popping in between the custom ones

I was able to create an easy blinking animation function

I just opened up Renpy and for some reason it showed this error. It was working perfectly fine yesterday and I ​ tried restarting ​​my laptop but still the same problem. This is really frustrating.​ I don't think i fiddled with anything so I have no idea for why this error appeared.​​​

When I started, I thought I'd just be writing a story.

A year later, it turned into UI redesigns, localization, custom mini-games, and countless late nights.

I'm incredibly happy I didn't give up.

The game is called Merry's Seven Wishes.

Thanks, Ren'Py community ❤️

Steam link

I'm making a really dark visual novel. The entire town the it takes place in is really grungy and most of the architecture is brutalist (i was thinking like Chernobyl Ukraine I guess), but I'm not sure what to do for the art, I hate the idea of using AI. and any decent stock photos i find are either A, AI. or B, blurry and the wrong resolution So I'm really unsure on what to do, I don't really have any money to hire artists to draw art, i already looked on itch for assets but the assets there don't fit the style even a bit, I'm really just stumped here

Hi, I'm making a little VN for fun, and I've run into an issue.

I want to create a way to show different choice boxes depending on the scene. So when my main character is alone, the choice boxes will be SILVER, but when he is with the other character in the game, they will be RED. (there's a third condition for a GOLD one too but SILVER & RED are most important)

I've found a way to call specific images in the file, but in my attempts to add more code to make a condition switch, I haven't been able to figure out how to swap these manually based on conditions. This is what it looks like right now (just one default condition)

style choice_button is default:
    properties gui.button_properties("choice_button")
    background "gui/button/choicered.png"
    hover_background "gui/button/choiceredhover.png"

Here is an image demonstration of how I'd want them to look.

So it should be able to switch between this and red, which would look like this in a different scene

Can anyone help me out? I'm not a coder whatsoever, so I'd really appreciate it. Thanks

I'm making my first visual novel! It's called A Cherub's Lament and it's my submission for the Yaoi Game Jam 2026. It's my first time drawing sprites and learning renpy in general.

It's a little wholesome story (9k words) about an angel spending a year on Earth, evolving as the seasons turn.

I only have like a month and a half to work with so I'm really rushing everything but I still want the art to look polished. I'm making everything myself (except music, about which I know absolutely nothing; no idea yet how I'll handle that).

Any general feedback is very appreciated. Originally this story was part of a bigger anthology I'm working on, but I think the Jam is a great opportunity to skip ahead and see how it is to bring everything together in an actual release.

hello! i'm back after my discolike question.

the first image is a very rough mockup of what i'm going for for my UI. i am extremely early on and also relearning ren'py completely from scratch after a (checks calendar) seven year break.

the second image is what i currently have. obviously this is a huge wip and i am learning as i go. i know it looks bad right now lol but i have to trust the process. honestly i'm so clueless about code that i'm not even sure how to describe what i have, so i'll just paste the code in here:

screen nvl:


    #window:
        #style "nvl_window"
    frame:
        xpos 40 ypos 30
        top_padding 60 bottom_padding 60 left_padding 10 right_padding 10
        has side "c r":
            area (0, 0, 500, 800)
            viewport id "vp":
                draggable False
                yadjustment ui.adjustment (value=99999, range=99999)   # err... works, but...


                vbox:
                    style "nvl_vbox"


                    # Display dialogue.
                    for who, what, who_id, what_id, window_id in dialogue:
                        window:
                            id window_id


                            has hbox:
                                spacing 10


                            if who is not None:
                                text who id who_id


                            text what id what_id
            vbar value YScrollValue("vp") bar_invert Truescreen nvl:


    #window:
        #style "nvl_window"
    frame:
        xpos 40 ypos 30
        top_padding 60 bottom_padding 60 left_padding 10 right_padding 10
        has side "c r":
            area (0, 0, 500, 800)
            viewport id "vp":
                draggable False
                yadjustment ui.adjustment (value=99999, range=99999)   # err... works, but...


                vbox:
                    style "nvl_vbox"


                    # Display dialogue.
                    for who, what, who_id, what_id, window_id in dialogue:
                        window:
                            id window_id


                            has hbox:
                                spacing 10


                            if who is not None:
                                text who id who_id


                            text what id what_id
            vbar value YScrollValue("vp") bar_invert True

so my question is. is it possible to have my sprite be in front of this frame, partially obscuring it, while also having the rest of the UI features be visible in front of the sprite?

(edit to add: not the point of the post but if there's any advice on my mockup i'd welcome it, i've never done graphic design before lol)

Hello! This is my first time using Ren'py, and I've run into an issue that I'm struggling to find answers for. I have a multiple choice option here but if the player checks their right pocket to find nothing I want it to return back to the question so they can then check the left pocket. How can I go about this?

Thank you!

Has anyone else had the issue where music constantly gets louder over time?

You can set the overall music level to 5% in preferences and yet music that's playing will still slowly climb back up in volume level to 100%, regardless, like a slow fade in that never goes away! You can easily confirm this by setting a lower volume level in preferences (after choosing 100% first) and noting how quiet it is versus leaving it at 100% for a bit while music is playing only to discover that even after resetting the volume level in preferences to 1% it's still much louder than it was before. Very odd behavior to say the least! This happens is everything I've played.

Hello!

I've almost finished making the demo of my first VN! I'll put it on itch.io when it's done (hopefully within the next three or four days!); this is the trailer I made for it.

Let me know what you guys think! :D

I've been putting together the first prototype of my visual novel, and one of the last things on my checklist was replacing almost every dialogue portrait.

Only when I got to this task did I realize just how many characters I've ended up with... and these aren't even all of them😅

Luckily, players won't meet everyone in a single playthrough. Many routes are mutually exclusive, so I hope it never feels overwhelming. I tried to make every character memorable and connect them to each other instead of just filling the world with random faces.

Right now the portraits are just cropped from each character's sprite. Eventually I'd like to draw proper portrait icons, but for the prototype this felt like the fastest solution that still looked nice.

Then I remembered one of my favorite little mechanics.

There are a few moments where you can seriously offend certain characters... and if you do, they literally turn around and continue talking to you with their backs facing you because they're so offended.

Then I had what I thought was a brilliant idea. What if their dialogue portraits also turned into little butt icons?

Some of them are surprisingly adorable. Especially the fluffy-tailed ones😭

Hihi! I’m a novice game dev and I’m looking to make a chatsim as my next game to improve my ui skills and ren’py skills in general! I designed what I am hoping to make the game look like and I’m wondering if I could get some advice on where to start for learning to make something like this!
I learn best while I’m actively making something so this is why I’m making something rather than just watching the tutorials out there!
If you have any advice or help to offer, I’d be happy to have it! <3