What BranchPy Actually Does

Stop guessing. See exactly what BranchPy does for you, with real examples from real projects.

BranchPy is a VS Code extension for Ren'Py visual novel developers. For each feature covered on this page, you'll find the real-world problem it solves and a side-by-side comparison of what your workflow looks like with and without it.

🐛 Find Bugs Before Your Players Do

The Problem: You test your game, everything seems fine. Then a player reports they're stuck on a blank screen because you forgot to create a label you referenced.
What BranchPy Does: Shows you every missing label, broken jump, unreachable scene, and dead-end path—before you release.

Without BranchPy

❌ Hope you tested every possible path

❌ Discover bugs from player complaints

❌ Spend hours clicking through your game

❌ Miss edge cases you never thought of

With BranchPy

✅ See all issues in one report

✅ Fix problems before release

✅ Instant analysis—no manual testing

✅ Catch every edge case automatically

Deep dive: Script Analysis →

🗺️ See Your Story Like Never Before

The Problem: Your game has 50 scenes, 20 choices, and multiple endings. You can't remember which path leads where, or if players can actually reach that secret ending you wrote.
What BranchPy Does: Creates an interactive flowchart showing every scene, choice, and path in your game. Click any node to jump straight to that code.

❌ Keep story structure in your head

❌ Scroll through thousands of lines to find scenes

❌ Draw diagrams on paper (or forget to)

❌ Wonder if paths are even connected

✅ See the entire game structure instantly

✅ Click any scene to jump to its code

✅ Auto-generated, always up to date

✅ Track all paths from start to endings

Deep dive: Story Flowchart →

🖼️ Never Lose Track of Images or Sounds

The Problem: You reference "happy_maria.png" in your code but the actual file is named "maria_happy.png". Or you have 20 versions of the same sprite and can't remember which one you're using.
What BranchPy Does: Checks every image, sound, and video file you reference. Shows you missing files, unused assets, and duplicate sprites.

❌ Find out about missing files when game crashes

❌ Accumulate unused files in your folders

❌ Manually check if assets exist

❌ Inconsistent naming causes errors

✅ Instant report of all missing assets

✅ Find unused files clogging your project

✅ Automatic asset validation

✅ Clear reference tracking

Deep dive: Media Validation →

⚡ Jump to Exactly What You Need

The Problem: You see an error about "chapter3_ending". Now you have to search through 10 files to find it. Then you fix it and realize you broke something else.
What BranchPy Does: Click any label, issue, or scene in BranchPy and it takes you straight to that line of code. No searching. No guessing.

❌ Search through files manually

❌ Forget which file has which scene

❌ Waste time navigating your project

❌ Lose your place while hunting for code

✅ One click to any label or scene

✅ Jump from flowchart to code instantly

✅ Go from issue report to fix in seconds

✅ Stay focused on what matters

🧠 Work Smarter, Not Harder

The Problem: Every time you want to check your game, you have to launch Ren'Py, click through menus, test paths manually, and hope you didn't miss anything.
What BranchPy Does: Analyzes your entire game in seconds. No launching, no clicking through menus, no manual testing. Just answers.

❌ Launch game for every check

❌ Manually test every change

❌ Spend hours on quality assurance

❌ Hope you didn't break something

✅ Instant analysis—no game launch needed

✅ Automatic validation of all paths

✅ Complete QA in seconds, not hours

✅ Confidence in every release

🔀 Know Exactly What Changed Between Sessions

The Problem: You fix ten issues in one session, run the game, and something new breaks. Was it always broken? Did your last edit cause it? Without a diff, you're guessing.
What BranchPy Does: Compare any two analysis reports side by side. See which labels gained new issues, which were fixed, what labels were added or removed — all in one view.

❌ No record of what changed between runs

❌ Regressions hide among other issues

❌ Manually scan two reports to find differences

❌ Uncertainty about whether fixes actually held

✅ One-click diff of any two reports

✅ New issues flagged immediately

✅ Fixed issues confirmed, not assumed

✅ Full change history across every session

Deep dive: Compare & Change Tracking →

🌍 Ship in Every Language — Without the Spreadsheet Chaos

The Problem: You add ten new lines of dialogue, send the script to your translators, and then wonder: which strings are already translated, which are new, and which are leftovers from a rewrite two months ago?
What BranchPy Does: Reads your Ren'Py tl/ folder and gives you an exact coverage percentage per language. Export every untranslated string to Excel, let translators fill it in, then import and preview every change before a single file is touched.

Without BranchPy

❌ No idea how complete each language actually is

❌ Translators work from copy-pasted text — errors guaranteed

❌ Stale strings linger from old script versions

❌ One bad import overwrites correct translations

With BranchPy

✅ Per-language coverage % in one panel

✅ Clean XLSX export with source text and file path

✅ Full validation before any file is written

✅ Preview every change — warnings require confirmation

Deep dive: Localization Coverage →

Ready to Work Smarter?

Stop fixing bugs your players find. Start catching them before release.

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