Create your own visual novel, “Choose your own adventure”, or dating sim games!

Are you a storyteller or artist who’s always wanted to create a “visual novel” but don’t know how to program? This session’s for you.

Have you ever played one of those “dating sim” games and thought “I could do a better job!”? This session’s also for you

Would you like to learn programming, but need to take on a fun project in order to learn? This session’s for you as well.

Would you like to learn game programming, but aren’t quite ready to dive into Unity? You might find this session useful.

Are you a Python programmer wants to try out an interesting game programming tool? This is the place.

In this session of “Think Like a Coder!”, we’ll look at the Ren’Py Visual Novel Engine, a free-as-in-speech/free-as-in-beer game engine. It’s primarily for making visual novels, which you could describe as a video game where “Choose Your Own Adventure” meets manga or graphic novels. With a little tweaking, you can easily write turn-based role-playing games or electronic board games.

You don’t need any programming experience to make a “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style game or visual novel with Ren’Py. It has a “low code” mode that lets you focus on storytelling rather than programming.

On the other hand, if you’ve done a little programming, you can use the Ren’Py language to add more complex interactivity. If you’re an experienced programmer, you can get even more complex by writing additional code in Python!

Once you’ve finished creating your Ren’Py game or visual novel, you can deploy it to a lot of platforms: Mac, Windows, and Linux desktops, Android and iOS devices, and the web. Simply put, your creations will run on most platforms!

Join me ONLINE as I take you on a tour of Ren’Py and show you how to get started with your first “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style game!