Ren'Py is a visual novel engine – used by thousands of creators from around the world – that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell interactive stories that run on computers and mobile devices. These can be both visual novels and life simulation games. The easy to learn script language allows anyone to efficiently write large visual novels, while its Python scripting is enough for complex simulation games.
Ren'Py is open source and free for commercial use.
The latest official release of Ren'Py 8 is 8.3.3 "Second Star to the Right", released on November 15, 2024. Ren'Py 8 is recommended for all projects.
The nightly fix version of Ren'Py is built every night, and contains fixes to the latest stable version. It isn't tested as well as the official release, but often has fixes that haven't made it through the release process.
A prerelease of Ren'Py 8.3.4 "Second Star to the Right" is available for testing. It was last updated on December 02, 2024. Please do not release games with this version until it has become stable. The prerelease is documented here.
The nightly builds of Ren'Py can have fixes that haven't made it into the prerelease yet. Please do not release games with nightly builds until the build has become stable.
Ren'Py 7 is the legacy version of Ren'Py, to support ongoing projects that will be released in 2024. The latest version of Ren'Py 7 is 7.8.3 "Straight on Till Morning", released on November 15, 2024.
The quickstart walks you through the process of creating a simple game.
Ren'Py comes with a comprehensive, if complex, reference manual, also available in Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese.
If you think you've found a bug in Ren'Py, report it to our GitHub issue tracker.
If you'd like to contribute to Ren'Py development, please visit our GitHub project page.
The best places to ask questions about Ren'Py are the Lemma Soft Forums, the Ren'Py Discord, and the #renpy IRC channel.
We make news about Ren'Py available on a number of social platforms:
Twitter: You can follow Ren'Py's lead developer @renpytom for release announcements, development news, and general commentary on life.
Facebook: We announce new releases on our Facebook page.
To ask questions that aren't appropriate for a public forum, or to find a speaker for your visual novel-related conference or con, please contact us via email.
Ren'Py has been used to create over 4,000 visual novels, games, and other works. You can find Ren'Py visual novels at the Visual Novel Database, and games made with Ren'Py on Itch.io and Steam.
Here are just a few of the games made with Ren'Py.