As somebody who has read a large number of visual novels (VNs), I consider Ren'py one of the better engines as a consumer:

- It has all the basic featured you'd expect, ranging from proper backlogs, to key bindings, and much more. You'd be shocked how many VN developers think that they can just pop out an VN engine themselves, and end up producing something that lacks even basic features.

- It is performant. You'd be surprised how poorly many VN engines run really poorly. Fast-forwarding past already-read text is often capped at a surprisingly slow rate, with your CPU pegged at 100%, due to how inefficient many engines are

- It is easily moddable, as you just need to plop a (pseudo-)python script into the game folder, so you can easily tweak or turn off annoying bits of UI

A number of localization companies have also ported (typically older) Japanese titles to Ren'py, instead of having to struggle with poor to non-existent support for non-Japanese systems in the original engine, as well as extremely expensive engine licenses, and just straight up poorly written bespoke engines. Examples of companies having done this includes JAST USA, FAKKU, MangaGamer, and (IIRC) Sekai Project/Denpasoft. In other words, the heavy hitters of VN localization.

The other main contender for best VN engine (in my mind) is the KiriKiri engine, which I believe is also open source, but which lacks the large, English-speaking community that Ren'py has built.

Despite that, Ren'py does have a bit of a poor reputation in the older VN reading community, more specifically among readers who mainly read localized, Japanese VNs, due to its association with low-budget, originally English visual novels. Typically the same people have only heard of DDLC and Katawa Shoujo, when it comes to originally English visual novels

For context, visual novels are basically ~novella sized stories that come with visuals like static backgrounds + a few dozen renders per character. The character renders tend to be mostly the same, with small variations in facial expression, pose, maybe outfit.

All that to say, you probably won't like VNs unless you like reading. Don't expect much gameplay / animation. That said, the more famous stories tend to have multiple endings determined by a handful of choices you get during the story. On occasion, some games go for sandbox-style gameplay where you roam the map to grind out currency to unlock visual novel scenes.

In terms of genre I'd say at least half are dating sims, with the rest being some kind of adventure or mystery story. I'd also guess at least half are nsfw / r18. Renpy VNs tend to be made by indie devs from everywhere but Japan, which has a VN industry with in-house engines.

Writing quality tends to be what you expect from indie authors / devs. That is, filled with tropes, tending towards the wish-fulfillment types. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, you'll be surprised what you'd be willing to overlook if the premise / plot seems interesting.

My 8 year old daughter loves graphic novels. And she's a budding writer. I got really excited to show her some of the links posted here.

Then I dug a little deeper and saw that a lot of it is very sexualized. I'm not opposed to that for adults but it isn't something I want my daughter exposed to.

Anyone have suggestions for safe spaces for kids? I really love the idea of her creating using ren'py but I'm worried it is a gateway to things she isn't ready for yet.

This was used to make 'Analogue: A Hate Story', which in my opinion was an interesting visual novel to read, with some more unusual interactive elements as well.

It feels to me like 'Hate Story' and its sequel ('Hate Plus') really pushed the bounds of what a visual novel engine can easily do.

If you're wondering what's up with the name, "Ren'Py" is a pun on the Japanese word "ren'ai" (恋愛), which means "romantic love".

I really wish they'd implement proper XDG stuff, because the engine is great and I love VNs but all I can think about is the ~/.renpy littering my home.

I just picked up Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog, which launched on steam this week, and was made with RenPy. It's going great so far. Some of the lore reminds me a lot of Martian Successor Nadesico.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2118420/Stories_from_Sol_...

Curious, I discovered this today as I played a visual novel built with it: Doki Doki literature club (free on steam).

Interesting read/play, but not for everyone.

Some really cool stuff has been built with Ren'Py. A (fairly) recent example for me is Roadwarden, a 20hr long RPG.

They have a database of over 4,000 visual novels built with this engine, but that barely scratches the surface. If you know where to look there are many thousands more projects built on this engine.

I've made two 'games' with ren'py in the past, and it's really fun engine to work in and quite an amazing engine as it can be used for the most basic straight forward game with little programming experience but also scales up to some pretty complex stuff if you have the means.

If you prefer JS to Python, there's also WebGAL https://github.com/OpenWebGAL/WebGAL

If you look on SteamDB PyGame and Ren'Py are the 5th and 6th most used technologies, ahead of Godot. https://steamdb.info/tech/

Some people point out this is mainly because of the erotic novel shovelware that is quite popular on Steam.

Hehe I've come across this tech from xxx games

Edit: I don't have the patience for these games but yeah I've seen the name before

It's a player, like Flash.

What does it do that Flash didn't?

The game engine that’s probably kickstarted more game dev careers than most. I remember when 4chan came together to produce the surprisingly good Katawa Shoujo with it. Wild times

I've always wondered if LLMs will slowly seep into this backyard. They are perfectly capable of creating the story (will probably be mid, barely interesting), the art (albeit easily recognized as AI slop) and the code (after some iterations) and with some tooling, even sign and deploy to websites all fully automated.