Build text-based games!

Write screenplay style scripts in easy to read Ruby -- prose, dialogue, sprites, music, choices and branching routes -- then ship to Windows, Mac, Linux & retro consoles.

What is RubyNovel?

RubyNovel is an engine for building text-based audiovisual experiences, like visual novels and adventure games. It is powered by an intuitive and customizable Ruby DSL, which enables easy and flexible scripting. Using the RubyNovel framework, it's easy to manage sprites, audio, animations and more. And once your script is complete... the game can be built for standard platforms like PC, Mac, and Linux, as well as retro consoles. We're inspired by visual novels on the Dreamcast or PC-98, and we want to be a part of enabling a more extensive homebrew community for those platforms.

Features

Branching

Choices, flags, loops, and RPG style dialogue are all built in!

Cross-platform

Write your script once... And build for multiple platforms, including retro consoles.

Simple to write

RubyNovel is powered by an intuitive Ruby DSL, allowing you to write scripts for your games that read more like screenplays than code.

Customizable

RubyNovel scripts are Ruby files... Which allows for customization of every aspect of scripting and allows many workflows.

Example script

# chapter1.rb
scene "chapel exterior"
show  Gill sad on right
show Thomas fade in on left
Thomas "You feeling okay, Gill?"
Gill "I guess..."