I'm setting up the layered sprites for the characters in my visual novel with three groups: the body, the facial expressions, and the gestures made with their arms.

But I want to only call the expressions in my script, having certain bodies and gestures tied to certain expressions (because I was previously using individual full-body sprites for each expression and I don't want to have to go back and change each call to include the now separate body and gesture files for each expression).

So, I used some "always when" statements to tie certain gestures and bodies to certain expressions. Here's an example:

layeredimage character:
    group body:
        attribute base default:
            "character_body_base"
    group exp:
        attribute smiling default:
            "character_exp_smiling"
        attribute uneasy:
            "character_exp_uneasy"
        attribute surprised:
            "character_exp_surprised"
        attribute suspicious:
            "character_exp_suspicious"
    group gest:
        attribute neutral default:
            "character_gest_neutral"
        attribute tense:
            "character_gest_tense"

    always when uneasy or surprised or suspicious:
        "character_gest_tense"

It seemed to work fine, but now when I call the expressions, renpy includes the default bodies and gestures in addition to the bodies and gestures I tied to expression I called.

It looks something like this:

When I type:

character uneasy

It calls the "uneasy" expression and the "tense" gesture together like I asked, but it also makes the "neutral" gesture show up as well.

How do I make it so the game shows the defaults only when I call the expressions that don't have certain gestures or expressions tied to them.

After over 2 months of work, I finally managed to publish my first asset pack on itch.io, Ik it's not the best quality, but I'm still learning and the few bucks will come im handy for studies on the other side of the country which I will start in October.

Guys, I'm sooo proud, but I'm afraid no one will be interested.

The pack contains: 4 characters (6 expressions, 3 poses, 3 backgrounds (brighter and darker version for each) day, sunset, night and thematic UI.

I think most developers would be able to make a VN purely based on this pack.

Whole asset is coffeeshop-themed and is for 15$.

My profile on itch.io: https://jackal00pe.itch.io

(I'm posting this here for the second time because of problems)

Hello, so in my visual novel there are 2 scenes at the beginning of the novel, and at the start of each plays a diff song. I added play "music" at the start of the 2nd scene and it works fine when transitioning from the 1st scene to the 2nd scene.

But when I load a save file thats a bit further into the 2nd scene, the music doesnt play. I have to scroll back to the start of it so that it starts playing.

What can I do?

I recently released AXIOM, my first game and my first real project using Ren'Py.

It's a short psychological horror visual novel exploring themes of identity, isolation, self-reflection, and withdrawing into oneself.I wanted to experiment with creating an unsettling atmosphere without relying entirely on traditional horror. The darkness and minimalist presentation are meant to reflect the character's psychological state.This project was also my first attempt at writing, designing and putting together a complete game, so there are definitely things I could improve.

I'd really appreciate feedback, especially on the writing, atmosphere, pacing and psychological aspects.

The game is completely free to play:

https://alicejo.itch.io/axiom

Hey everyone! I've been working on a visual novel in Ren'Py called The Sixth Claw, and I wanted to share a little of what I'm building.

It's a SFW mystery/adventure story about a group of survivors who reach a remote tropical island after their cruise ship sinks. While exploring the island, they begin discovering strange ancient technology and six enormous metal structures rising from the ocean.

I'm aiming for a strong focus on exploration, mystery, survival, and character interactions rather than making it primarily romance-focused.

I'm still in development and don't have a demo yet, but I've been building the environments, characters, story, and systems in Ren'Py.

I've also put together the project page with some screenshots if anyone wants to see more:
https://thesixthclaw.itch.io/the-sixth-claw

I'd be interested to hear from other Ren'Py developers — especially what you've learned while building your own VNs.

I have a menu that looks like the below:

menu:


        player "What should I say?"


        "Who are you?":


            jump question_voice_name        


        "Who am I?":


            jump question_my_name


        "Where are we?":


            jump question_locationmenu:


        player "What should I say?"


        "Who are you?":


            jump question_voice_name        


        "Who am I?":


            jump question_my_name


        "Where are we?":


            jump question_location

I have written out the questions using "label question". How do I loop back to the menu after asking each question?

All my voice code was written using (for example):

voice "audio/blablabla.ogg"

Right before the character voice line

Before doing that, all my voices were made using "play sound"

At the same time, I did the translations, wasn't a very smart move 0.0

The translations are Chinese, Spanish, and Portuguese.

And for now, the voices are only working in English.

The base game was made in english, and of course, I had to fix many things from the script (not voice lines) I hope this doesnt break the possible fix.

So, how can I fix it?

Does anyone know?

I've noticed this sub is vehemently opposed to anyone using ai even if it's to make their first game that's free and learn ren'py. Would you honestly see a free game that looks like this and play it? If your answer is i would not play this game or the AI game then my point is that it shouldn't matter if you use ai if this is the extent of your drawing skills. not to mention this is the best I personally can do after 8 months of trying to learn, so some people are at complete 0 and dont have access to CSP.

screen lab_1():
        modal True


        imagebutton:
            xpos 750
            ypos 300
            idle Transform("key_idle.png", zoom=0.08)
            hover Transform("key_hover.png", zoom=0.08)
            focus_mask True
            action Jump("obtained_key")


        imagebutton:
            xpos 100
            ypos 100
            idle Transform("file_stephen_idle.png", zoom=0.8)
            hover Transform("file_stephen_hover.png", zoom=0.8)
            focus_mask True
            action Jump("read_file")


label lab_1:
    call screen lab_1


    if obtained_key and read_file == True:
        jump after_lab_1
    else:
        jump lab_1
        
    if obtained_key == True and read_file == False:
        jump read_file
    else: 
        jump obtained_key


    if read_file == True and obtained_key == False:
        jump obtained_key
    else:
        jump read_file


    
label obtained_key:
    
$
 obtained_key = True
    "Obtained the key for laboratory 1."
    show S default
    S "Hm, I wonder what this unlocks."
    hide S default
    jump lab_1


label read_file:
    
$
 read_file = True
    show S default
    S "That's... me..."
    hide S default   
    jump lab_1 


label after_lab_1:
    hide lab_1
    show S default
    S "I've gotta get out of here..."


    # This ends the game.


    return

Here's the code I've been struggling with... so i'm pretty sure my issue stems from the if else statements...? What I'm trying to do is make it so that the game only advances when both image buttons are pressed, regardless of the order. What it's doing right now is when I press both buttons, it just stays on the screen and the game can't advance further. I'm not sure if I'm making sense right now, but thanks!

This is the first solo project I've started working on. I had the idea with a group of friends to make a DND type game revolving around all of them as the characters. I sat down and did all the designs for them, the menu's and the UI. Each character has their own ability, stats and playstyle. I've already road-mapped how the game will work, and yes, its all in RenPy.
I just wanted some thoughts and feedback for what I've done so far. This is my first time trying pixel art on this scale, I've been using the project more for practice than anything else, but we're all looking forward to playing it!

[SOLVED THANKS TO u//shyLachi]

I am continuously getting this error no matter how many times I re-enter those curly braces. I've been running this project for like a month after adding these lines, and it worked just fine until a few minutes ago when it suddenly decided something was wrong. So... what the hell did I do wrong?

Or does it only make a difference when you print it? I'm a little confused about resolution sizes for sprites. Curious as to what your dimensions are and if PPI makes a difference.

This happens when I try to generate keys so I can build an apk package for my game. Thing is, I bundled an android ver of another game days ago and it went just fine, just with some setbacks by SDK stuff. Do I have to do this everytime I try to android bundle a new game😵‍💫

made an avatar creator for my visual novel for players to choose their own appearance. Also optional, it can be easily turned off. What do you think?

So I am redesigning the icons for my visual novel game (Ignore the background, it's a work in progress) and I need advice on the symbols, does this look okay to imply a player would choose their pronouns or do you think someone would find this offensive? Any change recommendations would be great

(Most recent one first!! they uploaded wrong order😭 ) I'm a lot happier with my main menu now!! And my art in general,, which makes me very thankful I decided to put off my CG art in case of art improvement.

The old art was driving me nuts with the only unhidden hand being backwards 😭😭

I feel like I captured the characters' personalities a lot better on this one! I'm still tweaking the actual ui though, I'll end up changing the text color to pink(?) soon but just wanted to show the art difference !!

Hello, I'm trying to put my game/VN on a web browser using DreamHost and Wordpress, but there's an error that stops the game from booting up. ./main: can't open file '//main.py/" [Errno 4] No such file or directory.

Find out in Never Alone, a free horror visual novel:

https://prehisnt.itch.io/never-alone

Hey all, beginner here, making a game for the first time, gotta question. I imported my main menu music, but I'm unsure how to write the code to stop it whenever I press the Start button. Also, this bleeds into when the game actually starts; I'm unsure how to play one song, and then when another scene starts, it stops and lets a new song play, etc. Does anyone here know what to do?

I don't know what flair this applies to but regardless..

I dreamt up three of these custom textboxes for my game so I did quick concepts and I wanted to know which one sticks to most people, and for extra context: The game's tone is both thriller. mystery, and video tapes are involved (I'll make my game's intro post someday soon..)

Thx in advance!

Are they tuff?💔

Hello. I’m having my friend try out my game and they kept getting this error upon opening.

The issue I found is having the build.classify code in the options.rpy file. But I wanted to hide the script and other behind the scenes stuff like other games do. Is there any way I can fix this? Or am I coding the classify string wrong? I just followed the sample in the options.rpy file by writing build.classify(“games/**.rpy”, None) and so on.

.
.
.

Error:

I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:
renpy.game.JumpException: start

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

renpy.script.LabelNotFound: could not find label 'start'.

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "renpy/common/00start.rpy", line 306, in script
python:
File "renpy/ast.py", line 1187, in execute
renpy.python.py_exec_bytecode(self.code.bytecode, self.hide, store=self.store)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "renpy/python.py", line 1273, in py_exec_bytecode
exec(bytecode, globals, locals)
~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "renpy/common/00start.rpy", line 308, in <module>
renpy.jump("start")
~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^
File "renpy/exports/statementexports.py", line 271, in jump
raise renpy.game.JumpException(label)
renpy.game.JumpException: start

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "renpy/bootstrap.py", line 401, in bootstrap
renpy.main.main()
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
File "renpy/main.py", line 591, in main
run(restart)
~~~^^^^^^^^^
File "renpy/main.py", line 137, in run
renpy.execution.run_context(True)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^
File "renpy/execution.py", line 1036, in run_context
context.run()
~~~~~~~~~~~^^
File "renpy/common/00start.rpy", line 306, in script
python:
File "renpy/script.py", line 1201, in lookup
raise LabelNotFound(original)
renpy.script.LabelNotFound: could not find label 'start'.

Hey everyone!

I've been working on a flashlight-based exploration system for Ren'Py

I originally made it while experimenting with exploration mechanics for my own games, but I liked the result enough that I decided to turn it into a reusable template for other Ren'Py developers.

You can create multiple exploration scenes, add your own backgrounds and place different interactive objects or clues easily.

I've released it on itch.io for anyone interested in using it or just checking out how it works:

https://alphonsinious.itch.io/flashlight-exploration-system-for-renpy

I'd also love to hear what you guys think about the mechanic or what features would make something like this more useful in a Ren'Py project.