This is a tutorial for anyone wanting to play Ren'py games on a platform that the author didn't compile the game for. In particular, I want to play on Linux for Nintendo Switch, an ARM device that nobody compiles for.

This might also work for running Windows-only games on Linux, but I haven't tried it yet. Let me know if it works and I'll update the guide!

1. Download the game and extract it. In my case I downloaded the Linux x86_64 version of Butterfly Æffect.
2. Open the game/script-version.txt file. This tells you which version of Ren'py the game was built for. In my case, the file says (8, 3, 7).
3. Go to the Ren'py release list and click that version.
4. Just below the download buttons at the top, click Download ARM Linux (Raspberry Pi and Chromebook) SDK tar.bz2
5. Extract the Ren'py download. (It's faster to extract the whole thing because it's a .tar.bz2, where extracting partial files is very, very slow.)
6. Delete the following items from the game folder:
   • renpy
   • lib/python*
7. Copy the following items from the Ren'py version folder into the same relative location in the game folder:
   • renpy.sh (overwrite if needed)
   • renpy.py (overwrite if needed)
   • renpy (the subfolder)
   • lib/python* (version depends on what you downloaded)
   • lib/py3-YOUR-PLATFORM (check uname -m if you don't know your platform)

When done, your folder structure should look like this, where the yellow items have been newly copied:

Then run the newly copied renpy.sh and after a moment the game should open.

Hope this helped! Obviously I can't test it on every visual novel, but it seems to have worked for me. Contact me if you have corrections.

Switch improvements

If playing on Switch, you probably want to swap the A/B and X/Y buttons to the more familiar Nintendo button layout. If you can't do this in your controller software, you can modify the keymap file that the game uses. Edit renpy/common/00keymap.rpy and search for pad_y_press, you can swap a/b and x/y in this section to swap the button meanings.

Or, download my own 00keymap.rpy file and overwrite it. I personalised mine to be like other visual novels I'm used to.

If the dialogue text is too small to easily read on the built-in Switch's screen, open game/gui.rpy and change gui.text_size to a larger number. 40 is good enough for me.

Why?

I like to go outside and read in the park with some snacks. It's better for my health than having to read indoors on the computer, especially with how long some of these VNs are. It's also a much better form factor than a laptop for reading in bed.

— Cadence