Creating A Patcher for your RenPy Game?

[Squishysoft]

I was wondering with the way renpy is set up it doesn't seem very easy to set up a patcher for visual novel games. I guess that makes sense ...most visual novels are in fact static novels, but the direction video games seem to be heading (including my projects) deems the addition of a patcher a notable acquisition. I did some google search and could not find much, but then again I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking for. Games that used to be static like starcraft and warcraft have become very continuous and require patchers these days. So I was wondering if there was a way to create a patcher for my visual novel thingie that is sort of more like a phoenix wright form...just you know add more cases or missions with each patch.

[jack_norton]

I attempted doing one last year for planet stronghold but wasn't working on 100% of the system. Pytom says he plans to add a patcher/autoupdater, including patching .rpa files, but not sure how high in his priority list is. I surely would use something like that

[papillon]

It _can_ be done (with some limitations), Spiky's written one that we've been using for our games, but he's not been able to produce documentation user-friendly enough for most people who aren't him to figure out how to use it

[jack_norton]

Yes, exactly. Also, the patch setup works only on linux which is going to be a problem for most people anyway.

[PyTom]

A problem is that patch-creation support really needs to be integrated with the distribution builder. Once I get a chance to rewrite the distribution builder code, the patcher will be trivial.

That being said, I'm not promising any features to anyone anymore. Instead, I'm just going to work on what I feel like, and make releases of that every 3-4 months.

[Squishysoft]

Thanks all. Sorry for the necro, but I am still interested in this. I guess the alternative is to add 'sequels' with each case being independent of eachother. Also, I am figuring that patchers require dedicated servers to begin with and VNs aren't multiplayer by nature. Of course, a lot has changed in the 5 years since this post. Question: has anything changed that would alter the previous responses?

[Donmai]

This? https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/updater.html#web-updater

[Squishysoft]

Yes!~ Thank you. :3.