Renpy Pause (2025)

Table of Contents

1. Modes — Ren'Py Documentation 2. Statement Equivalents — Ren'Py Documentation 3. Diffrence between Pause(), pause and renpy.pause() - Lemma Soft Forums 4. Transitions — Ren'Py Documentation 5. Quickstart — Ren'Py Documentation 6. renpy.pause - Historic Ren'Py Wiki 7. Dialogue and Narration — Ren'Py Documentation 8. FAQ - Historic Ren'Py Wiki

1. Modes — Ren'Py Documentation

The mode Ren'Py enters when renpy.pause() is run. This is also the mode Ren'Py is in when a pause statement of indefinite duration occurs.
In Ren'Py, a mode is a concise way of describing the type of an interaction. When a mode is reported to Ren'Py, user-defined callbacks can be run. These calbacks can be used to react to a change in mode, perhaps by reconfiguring the user interface. For example, one can cause a transition to occur when switching from ADV-mode to NVL-mode, or when going to a menu, etc.

Calling renpy.pause guarantees that whatever is on the screen will be displayed for at least one frame, and hence has been shown to the player.
To allow Ren'Py to be scripted in Python, each Ren'Py statement has a Python equivalent. This usually consists of a Python function, but may also consist of a pattern of Python calls that perform an action equivalent to the statement.

Transitions can be used as part of the with statement, as well as in other parts of Ren'Py, to apply effects to changes in the scene.
Transitions can be used as part of the with statement, as well as in other parts of Ren'Py, to apply effects to changes in the scene (or sometimes to turn a displayable into another). Ren'Py comes with a small number of pre-defined transitions, which can be given directly to the with statement. For example:

GUI Customization Guide · Displaying Images · Script of The Question · Movie
See Also
Nwi Police Blotter
Welcome to the Ren'Py quickstart manual. The purpose of this manual is to demonstrate how you can make a Ren'Py game from scratch in a few easy steps. We'll do this by showing how to make a simple game, The Question.

You've reached a page on the Ren'Py wiki. Due to massive spam, the wiki hasn't been updated in over 5 years, and much of the information here is very out of ...
You've reached a page on the Ren'Py wiki. Due to massive spam, the wiki hasn't been updated in over 5 years, and much of the information here is very out of date. We've kept it because some of it is of historic interest, but all the information relevant to modern versions of Ren'Py has been moved elsewhere.

pause # the window is shown during this pause. window hide # hides the ... renpy.last_say() : provides information about the last say statement ...
Text is fundamental to visual novels, and generally quite important to storytelling-based games. This text may consist of dialogue labeled with the character that is saying it, and narration, which does not have a speaker. (For convenience, we will lump both dialogue and narration together as dialogue, except where the differences are important.) It's also important that the user be able to customize the look of dialogue to suit their game.

To pause in the middle of text being displayed, you can use either {p} or {w} ... See http://www.renpy.org/wiki/renpy/doc/tutorials/Quickstart#Menus ...
This page collects answers to questions that are frequently asked by people new to Ren'Py. The hope is that by including the answers here, we can make it easier for you to get started.