In game flowcharts for RenPy

If you're like me and want to make games with meaningful choices and multiple endings, then you might want to consider adding a way for players to keep track of what they've been doing. So why not add a flowchart?

I noticed there’s no available package or tutorial for how to implement one in game, so I figured I’d make one!

The simplest option, named ‘single flowchart option’ in the zip file, is to have one flowchart for the whole game that gets updated as players progress through the story. As such, it has the following features:

• A blacked out space to show a scene or section that has not been discovered yet
• A white outline around spaces that have been unlocked, along with a brief description of what happened
• An orange outline around spaces that were seen on the current playthrough. The playthrough is reset every time a player starts a new game, but the unlocked scenes will stay! If you want, you can edit your code to update the playthrough each time you load a save or whenever a new scene is unlocked. That is not currently in there, though.

But…

In most cases, choices are added to allow for multiple branches or routes in the story, with a split happening either early on or halfway through. As a result, you might want a separate flowchart for each route and possibly one for the pre-split section.  

Well, you’re in luck. In the ‘multiple flowchart option’ folder, you can find files that are pretty similar to those for the single option, except that they allow you to select which flowchart to look at.

 

I haven’t added any kind of documentation, so you’ll have to look through the code and files yourself to figure it out. But trust me, it’s very easy and you’ll have to do that anyway. If you’re able to code in Ren’Py at all, then you’ll be fine with this. Editing the images will need to be done manually as well, but again, you should do that anyway if you want any kind of custom feel to it.

As always, everything in the download is free and you can do whatever you want with it! Please be nice and credit me, though.