Every visual novel needs the same hundred small things before a single player enjoys it. Most of them are invisible when they work and painful when they do not. VN-Mikro ships them ready, so your work is the story.
Below: what the player does on its own, and what you can change when you want to.
Handled for you You can change
Text types out letter by letter Speed, or other ways to reveal text (soft fade, pop, rise) Click finishes the line; next click moves on — Holding the advance key speeds text up The fast speed Pauses inside a line, then continue Where the pauses go A short voice beep while text types, with slight pitch changes so it never sounds robotic The sound, pitch range and volume — or turn it off Bold, italic and coloured words — Auto-advance after a line Delay per line, or a default Readers can change text speed, auto-advance and text size in Settings Whether those rows appear
Handled for you You can change
The name plate shows the speaker’s name Its look, position, or a custom name like “???” Text appears in a dialogue panel Extra panels, whisper looks, what quiet panels do — Dialogue panels The speaker is highlighted; others step back How strong the effect is Mouths move while a character talks, eyes can blink Which pictures move, and how fast
Handled for you You can change
Characters get a place on stage (left, centre, right) without setup Number of places, their size and position Moving a character frees the old spot — Changing an expression blends smoothly Blend style Characters and backgrounds fade in and out Fade, slide, timing The picture scales to any window size Base resolution
Handled for you You can change
Choice menu with numbers and keyboard / mouse control Look, numbers on or off, order shuffled Choices that show or grey out depending on earlier decisions The conditions Timed choices The timer Asking the player to type a name Look and default text
This is where most homemade visual novels break. VN-Mikro keeps it stable.
Handled for you You can change
Autosave, and Continue on the title screen — Save and load in slots Number of slots (save_slots); you build the slot menu — polished slot UI still early — Save, Back and story end Loading brings back the whole scene: background, characters, music, effects, looks — Back steps through earlier lines, and the scene rewinds tooOn or off, how far back, whether text retypes History log of everything said Where it appears Settings (volume, fullscreen, language…) are kept separately from saves Default values on first launch Old saves that no longer match the story are detected, not silently broken The message shown Save files cannot be casually edited in released builds — “Saved” and “Loaded” messages Text and duration
Handled for you You can change
Title, pause and settings screens Buttons, layout, pictures — or your own screens Settings rows for music, sound, voice beep, text speed, auto-advance, text size, fullscreen, language Which rows appear and how they look A small in-game bar (pause button, etc.) Its contents and position Credits after the last line, then back to title Which screen, and whether to return Music on the title screen that fades in and out, and does not restart when the same track plays again Track, volume, fade times Button click and hover sounds Sounds and volume A custom mouse cursor that hides while the player reads Pictures, when it hides All keys can be remapped Default keys
Handled for you You can change
Language switch in Settings Which languages are offered Text and character looks per language The translations
While you write, the author player helps you catch mistakes before players do:
Handled for you You can change
Reload the story with one key and stay where you are — Check the whole project: broken jumps, branches that can never happen, missing characters, backgrounds, sprites or screens — Jump to any scene, with the right flags set on the way Which flags to set first See and edit flags while playing —
Handled for you You can change
Builds for Windows, macOS, Linux, web, Android (install file and Play Store) Which platforms you build Your icon converted to each platform’s format The icon picture Game name on the window, the app file and the build folder The name and version Start-up splash on desktop, web and Android Logo, background, colours Author tools and debug keys removed from player builds — Files your game does not use are left out Turn it off if you need them
A few things other tools offer are not in VN-Mikro today: skipping already-read text, gamepad controls, and picture thumbnails on save slots.
Multi-scripting (several story packs / scripts in one project) and the Save/Load menu polish (slots work; finished UI still early) — details: In development .
In development · How you work