Ink Visual Novel Lite Template
A simple visual novel template for web-based Ink games!
- Create scenes with individual backgrounds.
- Add characters with multiple sprites and move them around.
- Add sound effects to scenes.
- Adjust how character dialogue is formatted with HTML.
- Click through dialogue one line at a time, either with mouse or keyboard.
- Flip to dark mode for easier reading.
- Save and load game progress.
- View dialogue history.
- Includes a read me file with instructions and a short demo game
Check out this 40-minute workshop for a detailed guide:
If you prefer, you can get the template from the Git repository at Codeberg.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- New version of ink.jsJun 26, 2024
- Minor tweaksOct 28, 2023
Comments
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I use this template for my jam entry https://requ.itch.io/six-of-swords
It’s more powerful than I thought. I wonder if there’s a plan to develop this tool or would you prefer to keep it simple and sweet? (It’s already very nice).
As a note for people who are thinking of using this: inky 0.15.0 has just landed today, and it changes some stuff under the hood. If you download this and it doesn’t work, check your Inky version. If you’re working with this on Inky 0.14.0, don’t update Inky before you’re done editing story.js.
Yeah, the plan is to keep it sweet and simple. This was a one-off engine for Fix Your Mother's Printer and then we decided it was useful enough to release for other people to use.
I'm not against revisiting it occasionally to make smaller changes (what did you have in mind?) but it could easily turn into a project that eats up an unbounded amount of time and I'm definitely not looking to compete with Ren'Py or anything.
I'm in the middle of another project just at the moment but I'll see if I can find time to update it for Inky 0.15.0 sometime this week; thanks for the heads up!
The only thing I wish I could do is to have the image accept four arguments, with the third and fourth being width and height specifically (instead of the way it’s currently done, both proportionally resized at once). I don’t know how hard it would be, so I definitely understand if you decide not to change it.
This is really a beautiful little template! I get that it would be easy to fall into the rabbit hole with feature creep.
Ah, so you could squash or stretch the images? I think that would be in-scope for this, and pretty easy. I've also been thinking about adding a separate command for flipping so you can face the same sprite left and right (and up/down? hmm) and also get a fun card-flipping effect for free (which I discovered by accident when doing the code for Bez's Charlie HasBeen). And I don't think you can walk a sprite off an edge to make it disappear?
So a couple potential expansions, but I've been holding off until I have time to sit down and have a good think about how far I want to go with features. Glad you had fun with it!
Yes. I think with simple squashing and stretching you can already achieve a lot with 2D sprites. Flipping is a nice bonus, but it’s relatively simple to achieve out of engine (nice to have it in, though). Walking a sprite off an edge is also nice to have, but I can live without. There’s no pressure or anything. The simplicity is the strongest feature. I’ve been teaching ink as an entry to interactive fiction writing, and this template complements it nicely. Visual appeals to many people, but getting writers and artists to Ren’py can be…daunting. Sometimes you don’t need bells and whistles and the whole shebang.
This is interesting, thank you for sharing!
“That was very heteronormative of you” ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
Honestly, this rules. Can’t wait to make a tiny game with this.
Thank you! I love your games. Can't wait to see what you make with this.