Building a Visual Novel Engine: Plain Text Beats Everything

So there I was, minding my own business, when I decided to build a visual novel engine from scratch. Not because I had a burning desire to tell interactive stories about lighthouses and mysterious characters named Aria and Devon (though that’s exactly what happened), but because existing VN engines felt like trying to perform surgery with a sledgehammer.

The Problem with Existing Solutions

Most visual novel engines fall into two categories: either they’re so simple they make PowerPoint look sophisticated, or they’re so complex that you need a computer science degree just to display “Hello World.” I wanted something in the middle—powerful enough to handle complex branching narratives, but simple enough that you could actually write content without wanting to throw your laptop out the window.

Enter the text-based dialogue format. Instead of clicking through menus to position characters or wrestling with GUI editors, you just write:

ARIA: I've been here before... haven't I?
@ARIA neutral left facing=right
DEVON: Careful. The rocks are slick.
@DEVON neutral right facing=left

That’s it. No XML, no JSON, no proprietary file formats that break when you look at them wrong. Just plain text that any editor can handle.

The Syntax That Actually Makes Sense

The engine uses a custom syntax that’s almost readable as plain English. Want to show a character? @ARIA neutral left facing=right. Want to change the background? [BACKGROUND lighthouse_exterior]. Want to give the player a choice? [CHOICE] followed by > Enter the lighthouse -> scene_interior.

The syntax supports everything from simple conversations to complex branching narratives with variables and conditionals. You can even integrate minigames that affect the story flow:

[MINIGAME puzzle result=puz1 success=chapter1/scene_stairs fail=chapter1/intro]
Narrator: Puzzle success: ${puz1.success}

Variables are interpolated directly into dialogue text using ${variable} syntax. Conditionals work with natural operators:

[IF love_ARIA >= 3]
ARIA: I… think I can trust you.
[ELSE]
ARIA: We should keep moving.
[ENDIF]

The Editor That Doesn’t Suck

Writing content should be pleasant, not painful. The built-in editor provides syntax highlighting, autocomplete, and live preview. It’s not trying to be Visual Studio Code, but it’s not Notepad either. It’s just a good tool for the job.

The autocomplete suggests character names, emotion types, and scene references as you type. The syntax highlighting makes it clear what’s dialogue, what’s a command, and what’s a comment. The live preview updates in real-time so you can see exactly how your scene will look.

The Architecture That Actually Works

The engine is built around a simple philosophy: separate everything. The core engine handles parsing and state management, the renderer deals with visuals, the UI manages user interactions, and audio does its own thing. Each piece can be modified without breaking the others.

This modular approach means you can add features without rewriting everything. Want custom animations? Extend the renderer. Need a different save system? Swap out the UI component. It’s like having LEGO blocks for game development.

The Features That Matter

Instead of cramming in every possible feature, I focused on what actually matters for storytelling:

Character sprites with emotions and positioning
Backgrounds with smooth transitions
Choices that actually affect the story
Save/load with multiple slots and thumbnails
Audio that doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a tin can
Minigames because sometimes you need a break from all the talking

The dialogue format supports everything from simple conversations to complex branching narratives with variables and conditionals. You can even integrate minigames that affect the story flow.

The Result

What started as a weekend project became a full-featured engine capable of handling complex narratives. It’s not trying to compete with Ren’Py or Unity it’s trying to be the tool that gets out of your way so you can focus on telling stories.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what matters. Not the technology, not the features, not the clever architecture. Just the ability to create something that makes people feel something.

Even if that something is a story about a lighthouse and two characters who may or may not be having an existential crisis.

The Visual Novel Engine will be open source on GitHub once I am done.. Because apparently I’m not done building things yet.