Ren'Py 8.2.0 and Ren'Py 7.7.0 Released

I'm happy to announce Ren'Py 8.2.0 and Ren'Py 7.7.0, the latest releases of Ren'Py, the results of months of work by many contributors.

Ren'Py 8.2 is a major release of Ren'Py, containing new features, fixes, and improvements. It is recommended for all new games, and it's strongly recommended that existing games update to Ren'Py 8. Ren'Py 7.7 attempts to match Ren'Py 8.2 in features, while retaining support for Python 2. As some of the new features require Python 3 support, not every new feature in Ren'Py 8.2 is available in Ren'Py 7.7.

Ren'Py 8.2 and Ren'Py 7.7 are joint releases that add many new features, fixes, and improvements to Ren'Py. Some of the most important are:

• For 8.2 only, integration with the Harfbuzz text shaping library, which supports more languages and more complex text shaping than Ren'Py supported before. This adds support for Brahmic/Indic scripts, with an appropriate font.
• Support for displaying Emoji in color, simply by typing it into your game. 🎉
• Support for OpenType variable fonts.
• Improvements to the text interpolation system to allow expressions to be used, similar to Python's f-strings.
• The ability to show multiple speech bubbles at once, and to have speech bubbles animate in and out.
• Changes to Transform and ATL Transforms to be able to (in most cases) interpolate between absolute and relative positions.
• A new HTTPS/HTTP fetch function that properly pauses Ren'Py as the fetch occurs, and works with the web platform.
• Several new accessibility properties.
• Improvements to loading translations. Loading translations is roughly 2/3rds faster, and it's possible to defer loading translations for languages not in use.
• The ability to specify a transition that runs after each sequence of scene, show, and hide statements.
• A modernization of the Android build process, which now can use (and requires) the supported Java 21.
• The ability to create an Android game that can download its data from a web server, allowing the creation of games that are more than 2GB in size.
• Improvements and fixes to Web support, especially fullscreen modes.
• A complete rewrite of the Ren'Py updater to use a new format that works better with modern web servers.

But with so many changes, it's hard to list them all. For a full list, see the changelog.

There is two behavior changes I want to call out:

• The first is that Ren'Py 7.7 and 8.2 will attempt to remember and restore the window position, so you can expect that it may pop up in the last place you left it.
• The second is that config.gl2 is now ignored, and the only way to use the soon-to-be removed first-generation GL renderer is for the player to select it.

Downloads of 8.2.0 can be found at:

https://www.renpy.org/release/8.2.0

Downloads of 7.7.0 can be found at:

https://www.renpy.org/release/7.7.0

A full list of changes to Ren'Py can be found at:

https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/changelog.html

A list of changes that may require you to update your game can be found at:

https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/incompatible.html

Please also check out the credits and sponsor list.