Formats
One world. Many shapes to publish it in.
The cast, the places, the rules and the timeline do not care what shape the story ends up in. Only the last layer does — chapters, or pages, or panels, or scenes. So the door you pick changes what comes out of the studio, not what you had to build to get there.
Six ways out, from one bible. This page is here to help you pick the one that fits the story you are actually telling — and to be clear about where each one ends up.
Whatever you pick, you end up holding an ordinary file. A visual novel opens in Ren'Py itself — the same free program thousands of released games are made in — and a book opens on a Kindle. Nothing here needs Firn to run, and nothing is locked to us.
Reflowable EPUB is free. Everything you make is yours, commercially.
What carries between formats, and what doesn't.
Your cast, your places, your objects, your themes, your timeline, the rules of the world — all of that belongs to the story, not to the shape you publish it in. Only the top layer changes: chapters, or pages, or panels, or scenes.
Carries across
Your characters and how they change. Places and how they feel. Objects and what they mean. Themes. The order events happen in. The rules nobody can break. The look you settled on, and the art already drawn for your cast.
Rebuilt per format
The actual writing, laid out. Panels and pages. Which way the eye travels. Branching, where a format has it. Anything that depends on the shape of the page.
So renaming a character, redrawing her, or fixing a date you got wrong lands everywhere at once — you are never hunting through chapters for the old version. What is not free is the layout: a book's chapters are not a comic's panels, and Firn will not pretend otherwise.
Six doors, and who each one is for.
Find the row whose first two columns sound like the story already in your head. The rest tells you what you end up with, and where you can put it.
| Door | Best for | What comes out | Where it goes | Export |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visual novel | Stories where the reader's choices change what happens. | A game people click through and playSix expressions drawn for each lead, a background for every place, and a map of the branches | itch.io, Steam, or your own site | PremiumRen'Py export |
| Book | Long-form prose, and the fastest route to something readable. | A reflowable ebookChapters at 3,000+ words · text reflows to any screen or font size · EPUB 3 | Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, or any EPUB reader | FreeReflowable EPUB |
| Comic | Beats that land on a page turn, composed a page at a time. | Finished pages, art and lettering in place2063×3150 at 300dpi · 6–9 panels · left-to-right | Comic readers, print, or a fixed-layout ebook | PremiumCBZ / PDF / fixed EPUB |
| Manga | The same, in right-to-left reading order and B5 proportions. | Finished pages, bound right-to-leftB5 2140×3024 at 300dpi · 4–6 panels · right-to-left | Comic readers, print, or a fixed-layout ebook | PremiumCBZ / PDF / fixed EPUB |
| Webtoon | Beats that land on a scroll. Read on a phone, thumb moving. | Episodes built to scroll800×1280 per strip · 1–3 panels · long gaps between beats, the way the format reads | LINE Webtoon, Tapas, or your own site | PremiumStrip export |
| Audiobook | Listening. Built from chapters you have already drafted. | Your chapters, read aloudA different voice for the narrator and for each character who speaks | Listen in the studio, or take the audio away and finish it elsewhere | PremiumAudiobook export |
Still torn? Visual novels use the most of the studio — branches, expressions, a preview you can play — so they are a good way to see what the whole thing can do. And whatever you pick first, the world you build carries into the others later.
These are files, not a walled garden.
You do not need Firn to open what Firn made. If you walked away tomorrow, everything you built would still open, still read, still be yours — which is the only version of that promise worth making.
label ch2_the_first_core:
scene bg core_lab with dissolve
show wren worried at left
wren "That's not the season I remember."
menu:
"Tell Marit what the core showed":
$ told_marit = True
jump ch2_disclose
"Log it and say nothing":
jump ch2_withholdOrdinary Ren'Py, written the way a person would write it. Open it, read it, change any line you disagree with.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ComicInfo> <Title>The Ice Remembers</Title> <Series>The Ice Remembers</Series> <Number>1</Number> <PageCount>24</PageCount> <Manga>No</Manga> </ComicInfo>
Your pages, plus the small file every comic reader looks for to know what it is holding.
Which door, if you are torn.
Comic or webtoon? Paced for the page, or paced for the thumb. A comic page is composed as a whole and read as a whole; a webtoon strip is a column where vertical space is timing. If your beats land on turns, pick comic. If they land on scrolls, pick webtoon.
Book or audiobook? Not a fork — the audiobook is built from chapters you already drafted. Draft the book first; listening is the second door out of the same room.
Not sure at all? Take the visual novel. It is the path with the real proof behind it, it exercises the most of the studio, and the bible you build carries into any other door later.
Yours means yours.
Exports open without us. Your canon stays attached to the story that owns it. You hold full commercial rights to what you make. Ren'Py itself is free and stays free.