Plotato VN Engine
A downloadable tool for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android
What is Plotato?
Plotato is a free, open sourced visual novel game engine. It is primary designed to run in the browser as it uses HTML and CSS for its UI, but it can also be made into a stand-alone application by bundling it with Electron.
The game logic part of the engine is written in Python, or to be more precise - Brython, the Python flavour running in the browser.
The name Plotato is a portmanteau for 'plot' and 'potato'. The ability to quickly build plot focused visual novels was one of the goals when designing the engine, the other being - simplicity. It was never meant to compete with Unity, Godot or Unreal Engine and compared to these big engines - it is a potato-engine, as it only displays a bunch of images, buttons and some text. The relatively small and simple code base makes it easy to understand, master and customize.
Compared to Sugarcube/Twine, Plotato is more focused on the visual aspect of a visual novel (full-screen images with bite-sized texts at the bottom) while having the same portability (runs in any modern browser) and it also offers a visual plot editor.
Compared to Ren'py, Plotato is simpler, both in terms of code base and skills needed to develop a game and it is also designed to run in a browser from the ground up and not as a afterthought.
Features
- Free and Open Sourced, distributed under the ISC license
- Working in any (modern) browser on Windows, Linux, Android, Mac
- Deployable as a stand-alone executable via Electron
- Capable of running offline and online
- Integrated tools running in the browser (plot editor, item editor)
- Player customizable clothing system
- In-game quest log/to-do list
- Build-in history viewer
- Roll-back to last choice feature
- Autosaving to browsers local storage
- Saving/Loading to and from files (with human readable save format)
- In-game time support (check time of day, progress time etc)
- System for scheduled events (Time Critical Events)
- Map system with random and programmable events
- Simple custom variables memory (save.mc_name = 'Emily' or save.late_to_school+=1)
- Overlay for visual effects with customizable CSS (rain, lights, fog, etc)
- Color filters for player and NPC avatars (reuse the same sprites for different lighting conditions, like night and day)
- Text-To-Speech support with user customizable voices for each actor (where supported by OS and browser)
- Music playback
- Build-in modding support
- Python!
Current Status
The engine is still in development, but it is in a working state and it's being actively used to develop at least one game. Some of the development tools are crude but all of them are functional.
There is now a complete manual describing (almost) all of the concepts, elements and tools of the engine as well as the API.
Your Support
The Plotato visual novel game engine is, and will remain free and open sourced, usable to anyone and everyone with virtually no limitations (the license requires only that you include the copyright notice somewhere ).
However not everything is free in life, and for some reason, other people keep asking the developers of this engine for money - even for simple things like food and the option to sleep indoors.
If you would like to see the development of this engine continued, documentation, tutorials and examples written - please consider leaving a few dollars when you go to download the files.
Downloads
You can currently download a demo game made with the engine. It also contains the tools need to edit the game or make your own, brand new game. The tools are located in the 'dev' folder.
Online Demo
The online version of the Demo game is available right here on itch.io, just visit:
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Comments
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Looks really cool but I have no clue how to open it. 😅
It certainly seems like an interesting game engine. I do have to ask, is it possible to split the plot into multiple files so that it is easier to follow when writing it
It could be done, but you'd need to change the scripts at least a bit so that when the game is loaded it combines the plots from multiple files into one in-memory dictionary/javascript-object.
You can also just split a big plot line into smaller sub-plots using a jump node (eval_jump_to). From the player's perspective this will look exactly the same, but the editor will not evaluate a jump node and simply end drawing the graph if it encounters a jump node.
I currently have a game with 19 384 nodes (the plot.txt is 3.3MB) and the size of the plot is not a problem. True, some paths are convoluted and terrible to view in the editor, but there's a 'Draw from this node' button that hides pars of the graph that are unreachable from the select node.
Ah okay, I'd missed the editor. It would still be nice to have as I usually prefer to work text based instead of visual based.
Hi, I remember a while ago downloading the game that's shown in the pictures on the sidebar.
I've since lost the game, has the page been deleted?
That game was never posted on itch.io, at least >I< didn't post it here. If you google 'SlutED' you should be able to find it either online or a download link. If nothing shows up, look for F95 zone.
If all else fails - check out my buy-me-a-coffee page (link should be here somewhere) fresh links are always in the discord if you decide to become a supporter.
Thank you. I probably downloaded it from somewhere else and just completely forgot
Out of interest, why haven't you posted it here?
It's a-spicy meat ball. Probably too spicy for itch ;)
This needs an IDE stat! I'd be using it like all the time! I've been looking for a simple to use engine that works like twine for visual elements...saving your page bro!
Hey I think this is a really neat and fun engine. It seems almost like a game, to make a game. Excited to see what this project brings in the future man.
Could this be able to run on Windows XP?
I haven't used Windows XP for years now, and I'm no longer sure what can run on WinXP, but if you have a web browser that supports moderately recent CSS (variables, flexbox, grid) and Javascript (local storage, speech API), that browser should be able to run a game made with this engine ( but I expect some of the CSS may need changes to be more compatible).
In 2022 only around 0.1% of all devices run winxp, that's a very small niche and I think that for anything other than retro gaming people should really switch to something else. I have currently no plans of making the engine more compatible for windows xp than it already is.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question, and it's fine if the software itself is not supported. I was just more or less curious, I plan to use the software regardless. Cheers.
Thanks for asking Game Engine developers for WinXP support!
Oh, no problem. Windows XP is such an amazing Operating System; I still love it. Good luck with your endeavours.
I do not use Windows XP. But read this: Although I don't know many people I do know some who use Windows XP. Most of them with a laptop. Some of them also play computer games. I myself use a 32bit Linux system and play Windows games using Wine 1.6.2-20 which can at most simulate Windows XP. And that's quite enough! So that you understand me correctly: I am a power gamer! I have more than 300 games on GOG that work perfectly for me. I don't let anyone tell me when I should start using a newer operating system. And I laugh at individuals who think they know how many computer users use 32 bit systems. And I give all computer software developers a fair chance to develop software that could also be of interest to OURSELVES ;-)