Store Variables

Ren'Py has a number of store variables that control its function. Store variables may be changed at any time. If a store variable is changed after the game has started, it will be be saved and loaded by the save system, and rolled-back when rollback occurs.

adv = Character(...): This is a template ADV-mode character, and the default character kind that is used when Character() is called.

_autosave = True: This variable can be set to False to disable autosave.

_confirm_quit = True: This determines if quitting the game asks for confirmation. It is set to False during the splashscreen, and is ignored when in the main menu.

_constant: If set to true in a store, indicates the store is constant. See Constant Stores.

default_mouse

This is undefined by default. If defined, and if config.mouse is set at game startup, this is a key that is used to look up a mouse cursor when the current cursor does not exist, or is the default. This is used by config.mouse and MouseDisplayable().

See Custom Mouse Cursors for more information.

_dismiss_pause = True: If True, the player can dismiss pauses and transitions.

_game_menu_screen = "save"

This is the screen that is displayed when entering the game menu with no more specific screen selected. (For example, when right-clicking, pressing escape, or when ShowMenu() is not given an argument.) If None, entry to the game menu is disallowed.

This is set to None at the start of the splashscreen, and restored to its original value when the splashscreen ends.

_greedy_rollback = True: Determines if the game performs a greedy rollback after a load. A greedy rollback will rollback to just after the last statement that interacted, rather than to just before the statement that the game was in during the load.

_history = True: If true, Ren'Py will record dialogue history when a line is shown. (Note that config.history_length must be set as well.)

_history_list = [ ]: This is a list of history objects, corresponding to each line of history from oldest to newest. See the History section for more information.

_ignore_action = None: When this is not None, it's an action that is run after clicking Ignore on the error handling screen. The action is usually Jump(), to jump the game to a place that can recover from an error. If None, control continues with the next Ren'Py statement.

main_menu = False: Ren'Py sets this variable to True while in the main menu. This can be used to have screens display differently while in the main menu.

_menu = False: Ren'Py sets this variable to True when entering a main menu or game menu context.

menu = renpy.display_menu: The function that's called to display the in-game menu. It should take the same arguments as renpy.display_menu(), and pass unknown keyword arguments unchanged. Assigning nvl_menu() to this will display an nvl-mode menu.

mouse_visible = True: Controls if the mouse is visible. This is automatically set to true when entering the standard game menus.

name_only = Character(...)

This is a template character that is used when a string is given as the character name in a say statement. This:

"Eileen" "Hello, world."

is equivalent to:

$ temp_char = Character("Eileen", kind=name_only)
temp_char "Hello, world."

except that the temp_char variable is not used.

narrator = Character(...)

This is the character that speaks narration (say statements that do not give a character or character name). This:

"Hello, world."

is equivalent to:

narrator "Hello, world."

_quit_slot = None: If not None, this should be a string giving the name of a file slot. When Ren'Py quits, the game will be saved in this slot.

_rollback = True: Controls if rollback is allowed.

say : Callable

A function that is called by Ren'Py to display dialogue, when a string is used in place of the speaking character:

define e = Character("Eileen", who_color="#0f0")

label start:
    "Eileen" "My name is Eileen." # will call the say function
    e "I like trains !" # will not call the say function

This function should have the same signature as renpy.say(). It should not call renpy.say() but rather use the other say statement equivalents.

It's rare to call this function directly, as one can simply call a character with dialogue. This variable mostly exists to be redefined, as a way of hooking the say statement.

save_name = "": A save name that is included with saves.

_scene_show_hide_transition = None: If not None, this is a transition that will be performed using the with statement after a series of scene, show, and hide statements that are not followed by a with statement, or by a window transition.

See also

Automatic Transitions after Scene, Show, and Hide

_screenshot_pattern = None: If not None, this string is used in preference to config.screenshot_pattern to determine the filename of a screenshot. Please see the documentation for that variable for the format of the string.

_skipping = True: Controls if skipping is allowed.

_version = ...

This is set to config.version when a new game is started. It can be used by the after_load label or config.after_load_callbacks to determine which upgrades need to be done.

This is only set once, upon the initial start. After that, the game is responsible for updating _version as necessary.

_window = False: This set by the window show and window hide statements, and indirectly by window auto. If true, the dialogue window is shown during non-dialogue statements.

_window_auto = False: This is set to true by window auto and to false by window show and window hide. If true, the window auto behavior occurs.

_window_subtitle = '': This is appended to config.window_title to produce the caption for the game window. This is automatically set to config.menu_window_subtitle while in the game menu.