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This is a mashup of the current beginner tutorials. I'm trying to streamline and unify them. Should the tutorial be with The Question, or just a random sample script?
This is the part where I'll introduce you how games made with Ren'py work. We'll begin by opening up the sample game, The Question and continue with prodding and editing and changing it to understand the elements that make up a visual novel.
Most projects get dropped because they're either too ambitious, or when people start working on a story without having a clear concept of what they want to make.
To avoid making a project too ambitious, realize that 50000 words, the amount of words written during NaNoWriMo for example, means about 4 hours of playtime, 50-100 backgrounds, ~50 character images and quite a bit of music. Development time needed with 2 well-motivated people is about a year, perhaps more if it's just a hobby project.
For a first project, the length should be scaled back greatly, up to 5000 words is manageable. That is about 15-25 minutes of playtime, 10+ backgrounds, 10-30 character images. Development time is shortened considerably, the likelyhood of completion is considerably higher.
My own first completed game was just 500 words long, but I was able to complete it in just 24 hours, working alone. It used 12 images and had 2 music tracks. I suggest something like this for the first project.
Ok, if you already have some idea of what you want to do and you're anxious to get started, then all you need to do is download Ren'py from http://renpy.org and install it.
Once you've installed the latest version of Ren'py, run the Ren'py launcher. On Windows, this is renpy.exe. On linux, you run the script renpy.sh in the installed Ren'py directory.
Click on the New Project button. Click on the template button. The launcher will prompt you for a name. Enter a simple, preferably one-word name for your project. If you can't think of anything, renai1 will work. Then hit enter.
This should bring you back to the main launcher page, except now it will say the name of your project in the upper left-hand corner.
I'll mention the other commands in the launcher when we need them, but for now, click on the Edit Script button. This will launch the jEdit text editor with your new renpy script. If jEdit does not open, go to http://java.com/getjava/ to install Java. When jEdit opens, click on the script.rpy tab. This is what you should be seeing.
# You can place the script of your game in this file.
init:
# Declare images below this line, using the image statement.
# eg. image eileen happy = "eileen_happy.png"
# Declare characters used by this game.
$ e = Character('Eileen', color="#c8ffc8")
# The game starts here.
label start:
show text "What"
e "You've created a new Ren'Py game."
e "Once you add a story, pictures, and music, you can release it to the world!"Before we start using images or music, we need to know where to put these. When you made your new project earlier, a folder with the same name was created inside renpy folder. This is the base directory, and in it, game folder and readme.html. This readme file is shown if you press F1 in the game. You can edit it if you want to.
Inside the game directory is where the script.rpy and options.rpy are. I suggest you make a subdirectory for the images, called images and another for sounds and music. You can name these however you want to.