Ren'Py Tom

@HanoTamago patreon.com/c/vndb/posts

@renpytom Learned of VNDB a long time ago, but never knew they had a Patreon until now. Condolences to all who knew and worked with Yorhel 💚 Would you happen to have a link to the Patreon page if it's still up? I'd like to send a bit to help the team preserve the site if I can.

RIP. This is a loss for the visual novel community around the world. VNDB is one of the few patreons I personally support, given it's central role. My condolences to the those around Yorhel and the VNDB moderation team.

@esrtweet Do you include Ren'Py in there? I'd say that while we embed Python, Ren'Py is distinct enough it should probably count as it's own language.

Some days ago I promised my X audience some interesting statistics about the number of computer languages in the world. After a fairly long siege of AI-assisted digging into this topic, here we go... My source-line counter, loccount, now knows about 507 different program source code and markup formats. I believe that it is at this moment the tool with the absolute broadest coverage, and will remain so until and if tools like tokei and gocloc try to catch up. Of these, 332 are what you'd normally think of as languages - they can do general logic and computation. Here's a more detailed breakdown: 507 total entries 332 programming languages 175 DSLs, all kinds 28 documention formats 10 hardware definition languages 20 build-system DSLs 27 configuration-management DSLs 12 parser/lexer DSLs 3 shader DSLs 11 mathematics DSLs 11 model and diagram DSLs 9 query DSLs 12 serialization formats 35 templating DSLs 98 unclassified DSLs 11 proprietary 35 dead Rejected: 59 tied proprietary 16 toys 25 exceptions If these numbers seem oddly small to you, you'll have a lot of company. When I invited people to guess at them last week, most of the estimates were way, way too high. So one thing I should clarify right off: with only one exception, I omitted all esolangs. There are ridiculous numbers of these, enough to at least double the language count. I wanted to count languages used for production or at least R&D, not jokes and stunts. Another choice I made that reduced the number was to count all assemblers as one language. It's pretty difficult for a source-line counter to tell instruction sets apart; the one distinction I could have made, what the assembler uses as a comment leader, didn't seem very interesting. For similar reasons, almost all Lisp dialects collapse into just "Lisp", "Scheme", and "elisp". I also didn't count different compiler or interpreter implementations as separate languages unless the source languages were distinguished by some combination of file extension and forward-incompatible syntax - features loccount can see. Thus, there are only two Pascals (the other one is Delphi), and only a handful of Basics. For C and more recent languages this issue almost never arises, as they tend to have single dominant open-source implementations. Which brings us to the most difficult judgment call I had to make - which proprietary languages and markups to omit support for. You might well ask: why omit them? Because there is a long tail of crappy special-purpose languages tied to one product or vendor "ecosystem"; you can estimate the size of the tail from the "tied proprietary" figure above. These are mostly special-purpose languages with roles like programming shaders or scripting in proprietary game engines. Like esolangs, they don't deserve to own namespace or file-extension-space, and I'm nor going to help them claim it. The set of proprietary general-purpose languages interesting enough to be supported is not empty, but in 2026 it is tiny and unsuccessful; loccount supports exactly four. The other things in the "proprietary" category are special-pupose or historical. The "exceptions" category is things like languages with dead websites, languages that never got out of alpha, and dead dialects of BASIC on obolete micros. On the other hand, I was fanatical about chasing down historical languages - everything of note clear back to Algol-60. Robot friends have confirmed that I covered this like a blanket - the handful of residuals are things like FlowMatic and Algol-58 that died so long ago that nobody has ever bothered to retrospectively invent a file extension for them, and it is doubtful more than a few fragments of source code written in them survive. (For the aspies, yes, COMIT and IPL are also in the catregory.) Academic MFTLs (My Favorite Toy Languages) proved less prominent than I thought they would be. Either there have been many fewer of those than folklore supposes, or most have vanished entirely without trace. My robot friends assure me that loccount now supports all the notable ones. The category is a bit fuzzy but the number is certainly less than 30. I have only 35 languages marked dead. That means 297 of these languages - 89% - are still in at least sporadic use. That's not counting INTERCAL, which made it in not because I wrote a compiler for it but because I think it qualifies as historically notable. Feel free to hoot in derision if you wish. Some of you will be wondering about file extension collisions. This is a problem surprisingly seldom, and is usually resolved reliably by looking for syntax keywords unique to one of the languages in the extension clique. The ugliest pile-up is around ".m" and ".mm", with unhappy mentions for ".pl" and ".v". Some of you are, I'm sure, gesturing in the direction of things like Rosetta Code and the Kate list of highlighting rules and spluttering "What about all those?" I already hit the high spots there. Rosetta Code is stuffed to the gills with esolangs and ancient assemblers and BASICs. Kate has entire sheaves of rules for markup variations that loccount could never notice. More generally, people who collect languages for the sake of collecting languages like big numbers and are going to find ways to make number go up, even if the distinctions that end up being implied aren't very interesting. Along the way I discovered some interesting things about syntax families. But that's a story for another post.

@david_e_lang @TrackingTheSB I believe this just means a radio station in space. IIRC, ham radio satellites are considered to be space stations by the FCC - eg ecfr.gov/current/title-…

@TrackingTheSB it says 'space station' which would not seem to be starlinks, but rather something much bigger. are there any clamshell noses being built?

A new FCC license request was filed: Purpose: To launch and operate space stations on mass simulators for upcoming Starship-Super Heavy test flights. To further test the payload deployment mechanism of the Starship vehicle, SpaceX seeks special temporary authority to launch and operate space stations on mass simulators for upcoming Starship-Super Heavy test flights and use these space stations to communicate with SpaceX’s satellite constellation and earth station network for a short duration as those simulators reenter and demise. SpaceX expects the mass simulators to demise within 90 minutes of deployment. These suborbital test flights will originate at Starbase, TX and are expected to reach peak altitudes of up to 350 km. Start: 2026-04-07 End: 2026-06-06 It sounds like SpaceX is trying to communicate with Starlink Simulators. Could we be getting a camera? Link: apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/repo… #SpaceX #Starship

@m00nch1ld13 Turned out it was on my end, but manifested in an odd way.

@renpytom Oh ok my bad. Then it’s something on my end. I’ll try on a different device.

This one got to me, as it shows the care the Italian people give to the now-empty grave of an airman lost 80 years ago.

@m00nch1ld13 Which site? It's up here.

@renpytom @renpytom the site is down for 3 days

@m00nch1ld13 I didn't see a DM.

@renpytom Please check dm

Found the story on facebook.com/comunediguigli… A synopsis: Robert G. "Pete" Thompson was a 23-year-old First Lieutenant in the United States Army Air Forces, serving with the 346th Fighter Squadron of the 350th Fighter Group. Born around 1922, he hailed from New Vienna in Clinton County, Ohio, and his service number was O-2057052. He was described by local witnesses as a small-statured man with a boyish face and delicate hands, contrasting with the rugged farmers who encountered him. On April 20, 1945—near the end of World War II in Europe—Thompson was part of a four-plane section of P-47D Thunderbolt fighter-bombers (call sign "Minefield Ivory") that took off from Pisa San Giusto Airport in Italy at 13:15 for an armed reconnaissance mission. The group, consisting of 1st Lt. John E. Bergeron (leader, paired with Thompson as wingman), 1st Lt. Howard L. Barton, and 1st Lt. Lester C. Floyd, targeted the town of Vignola, still occupied by German troops. They attacked at 14:00 with 4.5-inch high-explosive rockets and 500-pound general-purpose bombs, then continued reconnaissance along State Road 9 (Via Emilia), splitting into pairs. After strafing a motor vehicle, Thompson reported smoke in his cockpit via radio. The pair turned back, but eight miles north of Vignola, they spotted two enemy tanks and attacked with incendiary rockets. Thompson was hit by anti-aircraft fire (flak) in the engine, causing oil pressure loss. He and Bergeron regrouped with the formation and headed back to base, but Thompson's aircraft trailed white smoke, signaling mechanical failure. Near Pieve di Trebbio (a small hamlet in the municipality of Guiglia, Modena province; coordinates approximately 44°25'N, 10°58'E), at around 14:30 on a clear spring afternoon, Thompson attempted an emergency belly landing with retracted gear on a wide vineyard field atop a hill ending in a steep cliff. The plane carved through vines but struck a sturdy cherry tree, shearing off the left wing, severing the tail, detaching the engine, and spinning into a group of five or six trees. It did not catch fire. Local boys playing nearby witnessed the crash and rushed to the wreck, marked by a large white star on a blue field. Farmer Ettore Pedroni arrived and had his son Anselmo wave a white towel to signal the orbiting planes, which noted the coordinates and returned to Pisa by 15:00. Two German soldiers from a nearby garrison extracted Thompson's body from the cockpit; he showed no external wounds but likely died from internal injuries due to the impact. They took his personal effects, including a dog tag, and warned locals of impending demolition, but events of liberation intervened. That night, locals and partisans dismantled the wreck for usable materials like arms, fuel, aluminum (repurposed into utensils), rubber, and steel. Thompson's body was buried in Pieve di Trebbio's small cemetery by farmers. On July 21, 1945, the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps transferred it to the American cemetery in Castelfiorentino. In November 1947, at his family's request, his remains were repatriated to the U.S., where he is buried in New Vienna Municipal Cemetery. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his sacrifice. On April 25, 1946—the first anniversary of Italy's Liberation—the people of Pieve di Trebbio erected a marble stele at the crash site (Via Casa Giusti, left of the church, facing the Sassi di Roccamalatina) with a voluntary collection. The inscription, composed by Ettore Pedroni (a farmer-poet), honors Thompson as a "messenger of freedom and peace" who "descended from the sky" and notes the community's "mother's love" in gathering his remains. The squadron's diary listed him as missing in action (MIA) due to the forced landing. This event occurred amid the crumbling Gothic Line, with Allied forces pursuing retreating Germans toward capitulation, just days before Bologna's liberation. The crash site overlooks the ancient 11th-century Romanesque church of Pieve di Trebbio and the dramatic geological formations of the Sassi di Roccamalatina.

@m00nch1ld13 No? Working on moving to a new version of SDL.

@renpytom Is Renpy down?

It's not much, but it's the first visual output from the port of renpy.pygame (and eventually, all of Ren'Py) to SDL3.

@gameanglia Ren'Py is made in Suffolk... ... County, NY. (Along with all over the world.)

Learn a new way to make games with Ren’py! You will code a small visual novel, with characters appearing on each side as they talk. Add your own character art or import from valid sources, add music and share your game with the world! More info 👉 bit.ly/4kAxLGg

@Cyderes @ThreatSynop One very minor detail - the Ren'Py launcher is a specific thing, which isn't really present here. This is more like " project created with Ren'Py."

@ThreatSynop Thank you for mentioning our latest findings. Read the full analysis from our Howler Cell team here: bit.ly/3MsOfU5

🚨 RenEngine Malware Campaign Hits 400K+ PCs via Cracked AAA Games, Deploying HijackLoader → ACR Stealer Cyderes uncovered a dual-stage infection chain where pirated Ren’Py-based game launchers run the RenEngine loader (Base64/XOR config, multi-factor anti-VM scoring) and then side-load HijackLoader modules to inject code and ultimately drop ACR Stealer to exfiltrate browser creds, session tokens, crypto wallets, and system data to a C2 at 78.40.193.126. The campaign has been active since at least April 2025 and is tracking infections via telemetry, with the highest victim counts reported in India, the U.S., and Brazil. 🕷️ Malware: RenEngine Loader, HijackLoader, ACR Stealer 🎯 Target: Global/Windows Users (top: India, USA, Brazil) #️⃣ Category: #Malware #CyberCrime #CyberIntel 🔗 URL: cyberinsider.com/renengine-camp…

@astronights0901 💯 Back when we started, visual novels were called Ren'Ai games. (In English, for some reason.)

oh my god i just realized ren'py is supposed to be a play on ren'ai 😭😭😭

@RazorSharpFang We already use SDL2, so SDL3 is the natural successor.

@renpytom Why was SDL3 what you settled on? Were there any other contenders that you considered but chose not to use?

Had dehydration brain fog me for a bit, cause by an interaction between medicines. It's good to have gotten that taken care of and be back to developing on all cylinders.

@WolfGameDev @RiotSupport I believe this is what Windows+Ctrl+Shift+B is for.

@RiotSupport The report a bug site won't load, so here's my report: Upon alt tabbing back into my arena game, the game froze and then all of my monitors blacked out. I could still hear the game volume, but required a hard reset of my entire computer to get back into my game.

Take a look at the whole thread - it also covers how to do this in modern Ren'Py.

I'm especially looking for artists with availability in the next week or so, and I tend to commission multiple artists. To get started, please DM me with a portfolio and your favorite visual novel - especially if it's one you worked on.

I'm looking for artists to create postcards for the Ren'Py patreon. Details of the project are at: renpy.org/artcard.html