Ren’py game engine review
By Rob Zwetsloot. Posted

Creating video games in 2020 may be easier than it was 20, even ten, years ago but it’s still hard. As with a lot of skills, sometimes you need to practise with something similar and work your way up. Created a game in Scratch? Great. Printed Hello World in the Python shell? Wonderful. What’s the next step, though?
Advertisement
The desktop computer you've been waiting for: Raspberry Pi 500+
We think Ren’py might be a good answer. Not because it’s mainly used for creating visual novels (VN) – while easy to deride, they’re a legitimate genre and difficult to make in their own way – but because it’s designed to make it easier to develop. Not only does it have great starter guides, but it also has very advanced functions for more complex game elements, like game-generated animations.
While it’s been compatible with Raspberry Pi for years, it’s never worked as well as it might. On earlier models you needed to tweak some of the memory usage settings as Ren’py could try to use more than was available. Now that Raspberry Pi 4 is here with much more RAM, it works far better – nearly comparable to full-fat desktop machines.
Creating a game
Your humble reviewer spent the last few weeks making a game with it – an item management sim called BBQ DAD – and discovered a huge and helpful community rivalling the one found around Raspberry Pi. Games can easily transcend the intended VN style without too much wrestling, and it has great tools for testing and building your final product. Although you can’t quite release to Raspberry Pi just yet.

Verdict
9/10
A great starting point to learn about game development, and even get your first game out into the world.
Run Ren'py games on Raspberry Pi
Ren’py games can be run on Raspberry Pi with some tweaks. After downloading and configuring the launcher for Raspberry Pi, and getting a game, run the Ren’py launcher. Hit Preferences and change the Projects Directory to the folder with the game in. Click Return, select the game from the menu, and hit Launch Project.

Rob is amazing. He’s also the Features Editor of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine, a hobbyist maker, cosplayer, comic book writer, and extremely modest.
Subscribe to Raspberry Pi Official Magazine
Save up to 37% off the cover price and get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W with a subscription to Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
More articles

Raspberry Pi 500+ in Raspberry Pi Official Magazine issue 158
We’re quite taken with Raspberry Pi 500+. But when you don’t need all that processing power, and just want a board that will make a plastic skeleton jump around in a terrifying manner, you’ll find Raspberry Pi Pico more than up to the job. There’s more terror in the magazine (which is only right as […]
Read more →

Win one of five Raspberry Pi SSD 1TB
Raspberry Pi prides itself on high quality hardware, and this 1TB Raspberry Pi SSD is no different. You can use it with a standard Raspberry Pi or even in your desktop PC – the choice is yours. We have five to give away and you can enter below Win 1 of 5 Raspberry Pi SSD […]
Read more →

Dual-screen cyberdeck
Twin screens mean you can code on one screen while watching David Bowie’s 1978 Musikladen show on the other.
Read more →
Sign up to the newsletter
Get every issue delivered directly to your inbox and keep up to date with the latest news, offers, events, and more.