My Novel — the starting point for your own visual novel

My Novel is the smallest complete visual novel in the game: an evening town, a bar and a home, connected by choices. It has no characters, items or battles — only scenes, short scenario files and their translations. It is meant to be copied: rename it, then grow your own story from these three places.

Play it from Play → My Novel → New game. It is the content of the My Novel game (collection novel_template).

What it contains

my_novel_game/
├── manifest.json
├── scenes/
│   ├── my_novel_town.json      town entrance, the game starts here
│   ├── my_novel_bar.json       bar with its ambient sound
│   └── my_novel_home.json      home vestibule
├── scenarios/
│   ├── my_novel_town.scenario
│   ├── my_novel_bar.scenario
│   └── my_novel_home.scenario
└── locale/
    ├── en.properties           mod name and description
    └── scenarios_<lang>.properties   translations of the scenario lines

The pictures and the bar sound are not in this mod: they come from Town Pack, so the template stays small and shows how a game reuses shared content. The music comes from Music Pack; the engine mods are the 2D Shell, Dialog Engine and Audio Engine.

How the story flows

The town is the hub. Every visit shows the same choice; the bar and the home each lead back.

            ┌────────────────────┐
            │   my_novel_town    │  (start)
            │  "Where to go?"    │
            └──┬──────────────┬──┘
   Go into the bar         Go back home
               ▼              ▼
     ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐
     │ my_novel_bar │  │ my_novel_home│
     └──────┬───────┘  └──────┬───────┘
            └─ Back to the town ─┘

A scene file names the background and the ambient sound:

{
  "name": "my_novel_bar",
  "defaultBackground": "bar/bar",
  "defaultAmbient": "bar/bar_ambient"
}

The scenario with the same scene name runs when the scene is entered:

scene: my_novel_town
priority: 10
---
# The town is the hub: every visit shows the same choice.
text "Evening town. The street lamps are already lit and a cool draught runs along the cobbles." key=my_novel/town/intro
select "Where to go?" key=my_novel/town/prompt
option "Go into the bar" key=my_novel/town/opt_bar -> :bar
option "Go back home" key=my_novel/town/opt_home -> :home

:bar
switch_scene my_novel_bar
end

:home
switch_scene my_novel_home
end

The English text is written directly in the scenario. Each key= names the line's translation in locale/scenarios_<lang>.properties, for example the Spanish one:

my_novel/town/intro = La ciudad al anochecer. Las farolas ya están encendidas y una corriente fresca recorre los adoquines.

Make it your own

Copy and rename the mod. Name it after your game with the _game suffix, for example harbor_game. Change the folder name and id in manifest.json to the same value, and rename the mod_my_novel_game_name / _desc keys in locale/*.properties to mod_harbor_game_name / _desc.
Make a game for it. In Mods & Collections → Collections, open My Novel's scheme and press Duplicate, then replace my_novel_game with your mod in the Story block. The entry scene is set in the collection ("entry": { "scene": "my_novel_town" }).
Rename the scenes if you like: the scene's name, its file, the scene: header of its scenario and every switch_scene that leads to it must match.
Keep or replace the art. Leave town_pack in depends to keep the town, or add your own backgrounds/ and sounds/ and point defaultBackground / defaultAmbient at them.

A first change: add a place

This is a real session in the editors, run inside My Novel with the Editor Tools mod added. The scene editor created a my_novel_park scene, and one option plus one label were typed into the town's scenario:

option "Go to the park" -> :park

:park
switch_scene my_novel_park
end

After saving, the town immediately offers the new way, and choosing it opens the new scene:

To get the editors in your own game, add the Editor Tools mod to it in the scheme, or launch the game for one session with them:

godot --path . -- --game=novel_template --new --with-mods=editor_tools

A new line without key= shows its literal text in every language; add a key and translations when the story is ready to be translated.

If something does not work

A choice leads nowhere. The switch_scene name must equal the target scene's name, including case.
A scene has no text. Its scenario's scene: header must name that scene.
The text is English in another language. The line has no key=, or the key is missing in that language's scenarios_<lang>.properties.
A black background. The background name is misspelt, or the mod that has the picture is not in depends.

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