Ren'Py Could Ren'Py add support for routes? (Or has it already?)

[Walt Dee]

So many visual novels/games today have several "routes" that one may take, and I'm wondering if game engines, Ren'Py specifically, might already have or consider adding some sort of support for them?

Using Eva Kiss' Good Girl Gone Bad as an example, if I'm playing the 'Good Ashley' route, I'd like to only save, and only load, saves from that route. If I'm playing the 'Thug Ashley' route, I'd like to only save or load saves from that route. And so on... I'd also like the option to switch from route to route at any time.

They could even use subdirectories to keep the saves separate:

Saves
    Good
        1-1-LT1.save
        1-2-LT1.save
    Thug
        1-1-LT1.save
        1-2-LT1.save
        1-3-LT1.save
        1-4-LT1.save
    Incest
        1-1-LT1.save
        1-2-LT1.save

...and so on. I know this would be a feature that I'd use and appreciate. Do you agree?

 

[Madeddy]

Not that i am aware of some official feature, however its python based. With this there must be a way to set it up like this and build some subarea gui.
You will surely need someone with a little more experience in python. Ren'py has a own discord and the creator listens there mostly in and answers. So, try asking him. Best way imho.

Greets

 

[Palanto]

Just as Madeddy said, it's possible to do it in ren'py but it's not a standart feature. Meaning: you have to build it yourself with screen language, python and ren'py language stuff....

 

[anne O'nymous]

Or you can do like me, and just use the fact that Ren'py works with "save/load page" and have potentially an infinite number of these pages. So, pages 1-10 are for this route, pages 11-20 for that one, and so on.

 

[Epadder]

I think if you wanted this kind of feature in a game, it would have to planned for from the start.

If most of the content a game contains is in a 'common' route it seems pointless to have this feature, especially if after the 'common' route is done the game basically just turns into a kinetic visual novel.

A more useful feature for players might be something like I saw in

You must be registered to see the links

, where after you complete the game once there is an option on the main menu that basically gives you an in-game walkthrough for the route you want to go down.

 

[NandabaCanti]

An idea I've been tossing around for the text game I've been messing around with is something of a flow chart style map of the game. Basically doing away with saves all together and instead unlocking and displaying the nodes in the map for the various scenes as you visit them. The path you took to your current scene, as well as the node for that scene itself, will be highlighted. Any time you'd like you can go to that map and jump to any previously unlocked portions of the map to either revisit a scene or head down a different path. The flags for the unlocked scenes and your current location in the story will be saved to a persistent storage file and there will be an in-game option to reset the data in case you'd want to start over from scratch at some point for a fresh replay.

I'm planning this for Godot though; it would probably be a lot more effort to pull off in Ren'Py. But if anyone was up to the task of coding it and wanted to run with the idea and release it as some sort of drop in module, I'd be fine with that. Would love to see a system like that available in a lot more VNs actually. I hate juggling dozens, of even hundreds, of save files for games. Trying to find particular scenes in that mess is always a nightmare, lol.

 

[anne O'nymous]

A more useful feature for players might be something like I saw in

You must be registered to see the links

, where after you complete the game once there is an option on the main menu that basically gives you an in-game walkthrough for the route you want to go down.

Well, this can already be done.

It need a persistent value to mark the fact that the game was finished once. Then something like :

default askedRoute = None

label start:
   if persistent.finishedOnce is True:
      call selectRoute  # let the player select the path he want to follow
   [...]

With menus looking like this :

   menu:
      "Be a jerk." if askedRoute is None or askedRoute == "girl1":
         [...]
      "Help her." if askedRoute is None or askedRoute == "girl2":
         [...]

or like that :

   menu:
      "[girl1Path] Be a jerk.":
         [...]
      "[girl2Path] Help her.":
         [...]

with, for this one, girlXPath being "" when the player haven't finished yet or don't follow this girl's path, and something like "->" otherwise.

 

[Epadder]

Oh, I figured it was possible and could be integrated in to most branching choice Ren'py VNs. My thought was the merit of save separation by route vs giving people the option of guided play after getting through the game after completing once for a developer.