Ren'py Items & Inventory Tutorial

Learn how to create items and inventory systems for your Visual Novels or other narrative games. I go over variables, lists, screens, classes, custom definitions, and drag and drop systems for six different inventory systems.

Follow along with the code here:

00:00 The Basics
01:13 Inventory System 1
04:41 Inventory System 2
07:50 Inventory System 3
10:25 Inventory System 4
14:30 Inventory System 5
19:10 Inventory System 6

[knightlyvirtues]

I don’t even need an inventory system in my game, I just like watching you talk about interesting Renpy mechanics. 👀👀

[panderball]

I would love to see a "map exploration in renpy" video from you!

[the_simile]

I would love to see a horror visual novel game tips video :]

[miserablepumpkin]

I missed the tutorials, this is so nice

[legendarybanditmb]

This is an amazing guide! Inventory systems are so intuitive IRL but can seem pretty daunting when you have to create the logic for your own one

[seireiart]

I think it's about time for a Ren'Py tutorial, missed those :3

[anassortmentofplaylists]

I was literally just looking for this, you must be some kind of wizard. Thank you!

[marklakan]

you couldn't have popped up at a better time with this video! thank you so much -- your editing and teaching style is perfect to understand and build upon, and i appreciate the time you put in to showing the parts that make the system work and why. It's what a lot of other tutorials tend to lack and what I find so frustrating about just taking someone else's code without knowing what it does. Thank you again, I hope you keep making more stuff like this!

[Neroxus]

YOU ARE BACK!!! OMG your videos have gotten me to understand so much about renpy and have always helped me!!

here is to many more videos from you <3

[Theguyoverthere]

Once again, thanking you from the bottom of my heart for continuing helping your fellow devs learn. Your videos are always a godsend <3 <3

[FloatySpaceVendingmachine]

Please, this tutorial is JUST what I needed


I also ADORED king of the cul-de-sac, every single scene was so dynamic and I loved the characters!

[Biinxiix]

Omg the king of tutorials has posted again

[cronicasdeeberron]

You're back! So happy to see you again.
With that said... any chance to get an updated combat tutorial?
Once again, love you and your content so much.

[ultrathegunna]

Ayyyyeee, im happy to see another tutorial from you! 🎉

[pratapanurag]

Unmatched quality as always, Visual Novel Design! Quick thought: if you’re looking to amplify your reach with catchy intros or shorts, I’d love to assist you guys.

[hollowfox]

This is the exact type of tutorial I needed, thank you 😅 I couldn’t figure this out on my own lol
I’m an artist, not a programmer!

[rashrules]

Thanks for your tutorials, they're concise and really well explained!
If you're taking requests- I think myself and many others would love a tutorial on how to implement a 'cross-examination' system in Ren'py (a la Ace Attorney, and also Danganronpa when you strip away its minigame aspects). It's *the* form of gameplay that matches the spirit of VNs the best imo, moreso than things like battle systems or other gimmicks, due to VNs being primarily dialogue driven and often having a central mystery.

Basically, a system in which there's a looping 'testimony', where the player can press each statement for info (which could even lead to additional and/or amended testimony), and present something from their inventory (or character profiles / journal entries / etc.) against a statement in order to point out a contradiction. The 'present evidence' screen ideally should keep the dialogue box in view so the contradiction can be directly compared. If the player scrolls past the last line of the testimony, the protagonist usually thinks to themselves (serving as a hint to the player as to what the contradiction might be) before the testimony loops.


There's already a Ren'Py game on Steam that does this btw: Paper Perjury, which I recommend people check out if they want inspiration.

[jerri]

wait, this is amazing! i was gonna make a vn that needed an inventory

[justAsliceofMilkBread]

This is a life saver, I really needed this!

[plagaselhacker]

My advice on classes, when defining a class, standard practice is to capitalize the name of the class, e.g. Toy(). Classes essentially are templates that contain variables, and methods, or functions (depending on the language), other than that, great video!