Ren'Py vs Pixi’VN

Making a comparison between Ren'Py and Pixi’VN is necessary because Ren'Py is currently the most widely used engine for creating visual novels.

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.

• Programming language: Ren'Py language, a programming language that allows you to develop visual novels quickly, even without much programming knowledge. It is based on Python.
• Canvas library: Pygame_sdl2 is a reimplementation of the Pygame API using SDL2 and related libraries. While it was originally meant to support multiple applications, it is now mainly used as the technology underlying Ren'Py.
• How does it work: Ren'Py is a complete visual novel engine/framework that takes care of creating a project, executing it, distributing it, and much more.

Programming language

Ren'Py uses its own language, Ren'Py language, which is a superset of Python. You can use Python statements in Ren'Py language.

Pixi’VN uses JavaScript/TypeScript, which are powerful and popular languages. To write the narration, you can use JavaScript/TypeScript or choose one or more narrative languages from those available.

Writing the narrative

With Ren'Py, to write the narrative, you use the Ren'Py language. This language is simple and easy to learn. It is based on Python, and you can use Python statements in Ren'Py language.

With Pixi’VN, you can use JavaScript/TypeScript to write the narration. You can also use various narrative languages (potentially you can integrate any narrative language using PixiVNJson).

Example of Ren'Py:

label start:
    "Hello, world!"
    "This is a Pixi’VN tutorial."
    "I hope you enjoy it!"

Example of Pixi’VN:

const startLabel = newLabel("start_label_id", [
    () => narration.dialogue = "Hello, world!",
    () => narration.dialogue = "This is a Pixi’VN tutorial.",
    () => narration.dialogue = "I hope you enjoy it!"
])

=== start
Hello, world!
This is a Pixi’VN tutorial.
I hope you enjoy it!
->DONE

Implementation of minigames

With Ren'Py, for creating minigames with complex mechanics/animations, you need to use Creator-Defined Displayables (CDD). This is necessary because otherwise you will have performance problems. With CDD you can create/control one or more graphic elements through a render loop. CDD is not very intuitive and is complicated to use. There are very few examples and few developers using CDD. In fact, most minigames do not have complex logic and animations.

With Pixi’VN, you can use PixiJS to create minigames. PixiJS is a very powerful library that allows you to create complex animations and mechanics. The documentation and examples are detailed, and there are many developers using PixiJS.

You can try some Ren'Py and PixiJS minigames to understand the difference:

• Ren'Py minigames
• PixiJS minigames
• PixiJS tutorials

UI implementation

With Ren'Py, to create the user interface, you use screens and styles. The recommended implementation is to draw a series of images and add them inside the canvas through the graphics components. The graphic components are limited and not very intuitive.

With Pixi’VN, in addition to using the components of PixiJS, you can also use systems such as React, Vue, etc., and install component libraries such as Material-UI, Bootstrap, etc. This allows you to create much more complex UI screens with excellent performance.

Performance and project size

Performance and project size are important factors to consider when choosing a framework.

Canvas libraries used:

• Pygame_sdl2: This canvas is underperforming. You can test this by inserting lots of moving graphics into Ren'Py.
• PixiJS: It is based on modern systems and has great performance. This can be tested directly from this example:

UI performance:

• Ren'Py's UI is based on canvas components that use images within the project.
• With Pixi’VN you can use HTML and/or JavaScript frameworks, known for their performance and usability, or the canvas. HTML/JavaScript components are not necessarily based on images, which leads to a smaller project size.

Project size:

• The entire UI of Ren'Py is based on "physical images", making the project size very large.
• Since Pixi’VN is a library, it does not determine the project size, but if you use vite or other tools, the project size will be very light.

Distribution on multiple devices

Ren'Py is directly responsible for distributing the game on various devices.

Pixi’VN does not handle distribution. You can use various frameworks (Tauri, Electron, Cordova, etc.) to distribute the project on multiple devices. Pixi’VN provides templates that already include the necessary configurations for distribution.

Development possibilities

Ren'Py is an engine designed only for creating visual novels. Adding complex functionality through Python that goes beyond the development of a normal visual novel is very complicated and is not recommended by the Ren'Py team. It does not have a package/library manager.

Pixi’VN is an npm library that allows you to create visual novels. You can also use this library in a project that is not natively a visual novel. npm is a package manager for JavaScript and the world's largest software registry.

Longevity and ease of internal development

Ren'Py was born in 2004 and is still used today. It is a very stable and mature project. Ren'Py, in addition to including the development of its own library for visual novels, also includes the development of Ren'Py language and Pygame_sdl2. Since Ren'Py also handles the distribution of the project on various devices, it is necessary to keep the system up to date with updates for supported operating systems.

This means that keeping Ren'Py updated is a constant and very complex process that "touches" many types of programming (parsing, graphics, etc.).

Pixi’VN was born in 2024. It is a very young project. Pixi’VN is only a library that uses PixiJS for the canvas. As well as providing functionality for visual novels, it doesn't handle anything else.

This means that keeping Pixi’VN updated is a very simple process and, once it reaches a stable version, it will not need constant updates to be compatible with the latest devices.

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you know object-oriented programming and want to create a visual novel with many features, minigames, a very complex UI, etc., you should use Pixi’VN. If you are not a programmer, want to create your visual novel quickly, and are willing to learn knowledge over time that you can reuse later, consider Pixi’VN. If you want a unified framework that takes care of everything without you having to decide which libraries to use, then Pixi’VN is not for you—Ren'Py is a valid option. If you want a no-code framework, currently, neither Ren'Py nor Pixi’VN are for you.