The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine is primarily designed to let you create text-heavy games such as visual novels and simulation games (like dating or management simulators). You can do this with the easy-to-learn Ren’Py script language or with Python if you want to make a complex simulation game; the software includes a tutorial.

Making your game with Ren’Py allows you to create branching stories, save file systems, rollback to previous points in the story, a variety of scene transitions, and animations.

Ren’Py is free to download for Windows, Mac, and Linux for both personal and commercial use, and can export games to desktop and mobile. Notable games made in Ren’Py include Doki Doki Literature Club! and Long Live the Queen.