Training Example: Ren’Py – Review the Data, Give Your Score & Compare to the Real AI Evaluation

[H1] What is Ren'Py?
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.
Why Ren'Py?

[H2] Where does it run?

Android 5.0+

HTML5/Web Assembly (Beta)

Linux x86_64/Arm

Windows 10+

Mac OS X 10.10+

iOS 11+
[H2] Where do I get it?

The latest official release of Ren'Py 8 is 8.5.3 "We Can Go to the Moon", released on
May 15, 2026. 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.

Download Ren'Py 8.5.3
Download Ren'Py 8 Nightly Fix

[H2] Where do I start?
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.

[H2] How do I keep in touch?
The best places to ask questions about Ren'Py are the Ren'Py Discord and
the Lemma Soft Forums.
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.

[H2] Who is it sponsored by?

[IMG: Ratalaika Games]
[IMG: Hero]
[IMG: GB Patch Games]
[IMG: Black Tabby Games]
[IMG: Fallen Eros]
[IMG: Refuge of Embers]
Moonbox Games
Softboi Games

tryinmorning
Charlene Gilbert
Aedian Glair
okenki
plasterbrain
Erin Cox
Estrada777
Lucy Blundell

... and 378 more sponsors.

Become a Sponsor!
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.
[H2] Featured Games
Ren'Py has been used to create over 8,000 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.

The desktop version of Doki Doki Literature Club makes
use of Ren'Py to be more than it appears to be.
Some graphic content means it may not be suitable for all players.

King of the Cul-De-Sac
makes great uses of Ren'Py's animation language and interactivity.

In Slay the Princess,
a voice asks you to kill the princess to save the world. Can you trust it?
Slay the Princess uses Ren'Py to change on each play-through. Some graphic content means it may not be suitable for all players.

Bad End Theater (Itch,
Steam)
uses Ren'Py to subject its protagonists to dozens of terrible fates.

South Scrimshaw: Part One
is a fictional nature documentary that uses Ren'Py's interactivity to explore an alien world.

[H1] Why Ren'Py?
Ren'Py is a free and cross platform engine for digital storytelling. It makes it easy to combine words, images, and sounds to create visual novels and life simulation games.
Visual novels are computer-based stories that are told through words, images, sounds, and music. Many visual novels also present the player with menu choices that allow the player to control how the story is told.
Ren'Py's script language makes it easy to write visual novels, and other writing-heavy games. It's easy to learn, and scales well to the largest projects. Even without customization, Ren'Py provides the features players have come to expect from their visual novels.
Life Simulation games, such as management and dating sims, are more interactive games that mix story with gameplay. Ren'Py's screen language allows one to create complex interfaces, while its support for the Python scripting language allows for complex game logic, if that's what your project requires.

[H2] Free and Open Source

Ren'Py is free to use with commercial and non-commercial games. There is no need to pay a fee to us or anyone else1 to distribute your Ren'Py game. Ren'Py has already been used with a half-dozen commercial games, and more are on the way.
Ren'Py doesn't tie your work to a particular company, web service, or business model. Ren'Py games have been digitally downloaded millions of times, can be moved on USB drives, and have been burned to CD and sold at conventions from Texas to Tokyo. We think it's important the maker can choose how his or her work is distributed.
Ren'Py is open source, which means that everyone is allowed to change it, in order to fix bugs or add features. Of course, with a record of over fifteen years of improvements, it likely won't be necessary --- but the option is there if your project needs it.

[H2] Cross Platform - Computer and Mobile

One of Ren'Py's biggest advantages is that runs on almost every computer. There are three primary platforms we support:
Windows 10+ (x86_64)
Mac OS X 10.10+ (x86_64)
Linux (x86_64, Arm)
The Ren'Py launcher makes it possible to build versions of Ren'Py games for all three from any of these three platforms, making it possible to develop (for example) Mac and Linux versions on Windows.
Ren'Py games are not dependent on any other software on these platforms. There's no need for your users to download runtimes, drivers, codecs, or anything like that. If a user has one of the supported platforms, Ren'Py will run. (Even if not, Ren'Py is written using portable technologies like pygame, and so can probably be made to run.)

Android and iOS are supported as a secondary platforms. Ren'Py runs on these devices, but development must occur on one of the computer platforms. Ren'Py games can be run inside a browser that supports Web Assembly, but this support will be Beta until the browser platform improves.

[H2] Simple Scripting Language
Ren'Py allows visual novels to be written in a simple scripting language. Here's a small excerpt from a game:
label family:
scene bg beach2
with dissolve
"It wasn't long before Mary broke the silence, by asking me a question."
show mary dark smiling
with dissolve
m "I told you a little about my family... but I haven't asked you about yours yet. What's your family like?"
p "When I'm on the island here, I live with my aunt and uncle, but back home, I live with my mother, father, and sister."
m "A sister? Is she older or younger?"
As you can see, this example, taken from a working Ren'Py script doesn't require much extra typing when compared just simply typing in the script for the game. It even lets you abbreviate character names, letting you write m instead of "Mary".
Ren'Py lets you define characters and images in a central place, making it easy to change the game. Scripts also provide consistency, ensuring that the placement of text and images does not inadvertently change throughout the game.
Unlike other engines that force you to use particular tools, the Ren'Py script language works with whatever text editors and other tools you choose. While we include the jEdit text editor, there's nothing forcing you to use it if you have another editor you like better. Other third-party tools can check your game's spelling, or show you the differences between two versions of the game.
Since Ren'Py's scripting language is text based, it can be typed out on any keyboard. Not having to switch back and forth between the keyboard and mouse helps increase productivity, especially when producing large projects.

[H2] Features Players Want

Ren'Py includes, by default, all of the features a user expects from a visual novel game. While most of these features can be customized or disabled if desired, by default each new game has:
A main menu that lets the user start a new game, load a game, or adjust settings.
A game menu that lets the user load, save, and adjust settings.
Automatic saving of games.
Rollback, the ability to go back in time to see previously shown screens. The user can even make different choices the second time around.
Predictive image loading, which loads images in the background. This prevents the user from having to wait around while images are being loaded from disk.
Support for controlling the game using the mouse, keyboard, or gamepad.
The ability to pick if the game runs in fullscreen mode, or in a rescalable window.
The ability to skip through text when replaying, including the ability to skip only text that's been read.
The ability to auto-advance text without having to hit the keyboard. This adjusts to the amount of text being shown, so longer text sticks around longer.
The ability to hide text, so that the user can see the pictures behind it.
The ability to independently change music, sound effect, and voice volume.
[H2] Easy to Customize and Localize

There are many ways a creator can customize the look and feel of Ren'Py:
Dialogue can be presented in the default ADV-style mode, or in NVL-mode, where more than one block of text is on the screen at once.
The style system allows the creator to customize the look of text, buttons, bars, and other interface components.
Ren'Py's screen language makes it possible to control the layout and behavior of every screen of the user interface.
The same functionality is made available to Python code, for games that might choose to change their interface at runtime.
Ren'Py game have been made in or translated to Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Indonesian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. With proper fonts, it supports any language that doesn't require ligatures, and some that do.

[H2] Powerful Effects

Ren'Py can take advantage of hardware acceleration on supported computers, while falling back to software support when it's not. This acceleration makes it possible to apply sophisticated effects to high definition images.
The Animation and Transformation Language included with Ren'Py makes it possible to animate images, move them around the screen, rotate them, adjust their scaling, and adjust their opacity. All of these can easily be changed over time.
Ren'Py ships with dozens of customizable transitions that can be invoked when a scene changes. In addition to a full set of slides, wipes, and moves, this includes:
Pixellation of the old scene, and unpixellation of the new one.
Fades to black (or another color), and then to the new scene.
Dissolves of the whole screen from one scene to another.
Image-controlled dissolves, which use an image to control which portions of the screen dissolve in first. This has been used as the basis for a variety of powerful effects, from blood spatters to transporter beams.
Ren'Py also supports the playback of movie files.

[H2] Compatible Formats

Ren'Py is compatible with assets in a variety of popular formats:
Images: JPEG/JPG, PNG, WEBP, BMP, GIF
Sound/Music: OPUS, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, MP3, MP2
Movies: WEBM, OGG Theora, VP9, VP8, MPEG 41, MPEG 2, MPEG 1
Scalable Fonts: TrueType
Image-based Fonts: SFont, BMFont, MudgeFont
1 This format may be patented, and so may not be suitable for use in commercial games.

[H2] Well Supported
Thousands of games have been released with Ren'Py, making it one of the most widely used visual novel engines in the world.
There are now a large number of creators with Ren'Py experience, many of whom are willing to help fellow creators. The best place to go for support is the Ren'Py forum at the Lemma Soft Forums, which has more than 110,000 posts in over 20,000 threads. (Figures accurate as of June 2019.)

[H2] What Next?
When you're ready to start using Ren'Py, you'll want to download it from our download page, and then take a look at the Quickstart Guide.
We can't wait to see what you create!
Get Started

[H1] Ren'Py 8.5.3 "We Can Go to the Moon"
was released on May 15, 2026.
The main downloads of Ren'Py 8.5.3 are:
Download SDK 7z.exe - 116 MiB
Download SDK dmg - 150 MiB
Download SDK tar.bz2 - 146 MiB
Download SDK zip - 155 MiB

Download ARM Linux (Raspberry Pi and Chromebook) SDK tar.bz2 - 159 MiB

Thank you for downloading Ren'Py.

Become a Sponsor!

You only need to download one of these files. Each contains the full Ren'Py software development kit, with everything needed to develop Ren'Py games for the Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms; the Ren'Py tutorial; and "The Question", an example game.

Ren'Py is free to download and use for commercial and non-commercial purposes. It may be modified and distributed under the terms of its license.
Additional Downloads. When necessary, the Ren'Py SDK will automatically download additional packages, such as text editors and Android/iOS support. These packages are available for direct download at the bottom of this page.

[H2] Announcement
I'd like to announce Ren'Py 8.5.3, a fix release of Ren'Py 8.5. This release fixes multiple issues, adds a few small features,
and improves documentation. It also adds and updates translations of the tutorial games. Ren'Py now supports and requires
Live2D 5.3 when Live2D is in use.
Some of the major changes in Ren'Py 8.5 are:
Live2D models are now supported on the Web platform.
A new Automated Testing framework makes it possible to perform automated tests of games and of Ren'Py itself.
Local labels have been relaxed so that they can be declared with any global label.
Ren'Py supports Unicode 17 and more Emoji characters.
As well as many other improvements, changes, and fixes. For a complete list of changes, please see the changelog.
Downloads of Ren'Py 8.5.3 can be found at:

https://www.renpy.org/release/8.5.3
A full list of changes to Ren'Py can be found at:

https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/changelog.html
A list of changes that may require you to update your game can be found at:

https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/incompatible.html
Please also check out the credits and
list of sponsors.

[H2] Credits
Ren'Py 8.5.3 is brought to you by:

Andy_kl
Arsym
Atlas Cove
Devon Lewis
Dipesh Aggarwal
Elckarow
Galo223344
Gouvernathor
HB38
Kassy
LoafyLemon
Mal Graty
NaughyRoad
Rastagong
River
Rodrigo Oliveira

Rose20
Ruben Garcia
TDCMC
Totally a booplicate
Ulysses Zhan
VivianTu789
Vladya
aliengeo
bkats
dynamiclinking
juperMonkey
levicratic
loviuz
the66F95
veydzh3r

everyone who's tested this release, and myself, Tom "Renpytom" Rothamel.

[H2] Editor Downloads
When first asked to edit a file, the Ren'Py launcher will prompt you to download and
install an editor. As this may fail if your Internet connection is unreliable, the
editors can be downloaded separately. To install, extract the contents of the editor
archive to the Ren'Py directory.

VS Code: Editor,
Ren'Py Language extension.

To use a VS Code installed outside Ren'Py, select the "Visual Studio Code (System)" editor.

[H2] Android and iOS Support
When building Android packages, iOS packages, or web distributions, Ren'Py will prompt you to download
RAPT (Ren'Py Android Packaging Tool), Renios (Ren'Py iOS Support), or Renpyweb (Web Platform Support).
As these downloads may fail if your Internet connection is unreliable, these packages
can be downloaded separately. To install, extract the contents of the
archive to the Ren'Py directory. (Place the "rapt", "renios", or "web" directory into the "renpy-8.5.3"
directory.)
Android Support (RAPT): renpy-8.5.3-rapt.zip

iOS Support (Renios): renpy-8.5.3-renios.zip

Web Platform Support (Renpyweb): renpy-8.5.3-web.zip
[H2] Additional Downloads

Ren'Py Source Code: renpy-8.5.3-source.tar.bz2
Contains the source code of the Ren'Py distribution without any binary components.
Other Dependencies: https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/license.html
Ren'Py contains free software licensed under a number of licenses, including the GNU Lesser
General Public License. A full list of software and links to git repositories from which the software
can be downloaded is linked above.
Checksums: checksums.txt
Checksums for the various files making up the Ren'Py distribution.
We also maintain a complete list of releases.