Welcome to Jovel: the Visual Novel engine where your story takes center stage.

Forget complex interfaces, node graphs, or editors with endless learning curves.

Can't wait to see what you make!

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How it works

Your game is just a folder. There's no proprietary project format, no editor to learn first. Open any text editor, write a scene, save — done.

*

Characters, backgrounds, audio, branching choices — all in the same file. No separate configuration panels, no node graphs.

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Features

- Hot reload dev server:

Just run:

jovel-cli serve --source my-game/

It opens the browser and watches your files. Save, look up, see the changes. That's it!

- Custom UI panels:

 the dialogue box, pause menu, settings screen etc. are .panel.html files that live in your game folder. Style them however you want.

- Simple character system:

define characters once in _characters.json. Sprites, expressions, positions and flip are all set per-line in the story file.

- Custom UI panels:

stack images, apply filters, animate with parallax. Layers can be made interactive so players click objects to trigger dialogue.

• Save slots — multiple saves with screenshot thumbnails, autosave on choices or custom events. Works identically on web and desktop.
• JavaScript hooks — onEnter / onExit inline scripts and .action.js files for when YAML isn't enough.
• Localization — locale JSON files, per-line multilingual text, reactive UI bindings. Add a language in a few minutes.

- Fast & Lightweight build:

Yup, it's fast and lightweight, i think...

Despite the build result is a web-based hybrid software, the backend and the builder are written entirely in C and Go from scratch and take advantage of the operating system's web rendering capabilities, making the resulting game (on desktop) extremely lightweight 

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Building and distributing

Add your target platforms to game.config.json, then run:

jovel-cli build --source my-game/ --dist out/

This produces:

• web/ — a static HTML/JS app you can upload directly to itch.io, GitHub Pages, Netlify, anywhere.
• desktop/ — native binaries for Linux x64, Linux arm64 and Windows x64.

For a single self-contained executable (no sidecar files):

jovel-cli build --source my-game/ --opt desktop=onefile

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Getting started

1. Download jovel for your platform (Note: macOS is not yet supported). You’ll find some examples in the “examples” folder and introductory documentation in the “docs” folder.
2. Either double-click the jovel executable and follow the interactive menu, or open a terminal and run: jovel serve --source examples/classic-visual-novel
3. Start editing story/intro.yaml and see your changes live.

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Known issues

Jovel is still pre-1.0, so consider this the "we're still figuring stuff out" phase — the story format and JS API might shift a bit between releases. Nothing dramatic, just the usual growing pains. Here are a few specific gremlins currently living in the build, so you don't lose an evening debugging them yourself:

•  stop-auto-mode / stop-skip-mode panel attributes are inert. They're parsed but never checked, so opening a panel with these attributes won't actually pause auto/skip mode. If you need that behavior, call flow.stopFlow() / flow.resumeFlow() manually from the panel's on-enter / on-exit action. 
• autosaveAfterAction never triggers. The internal check requires action-type lines to have a choices field, which they never do. Setting it to true in game.config.json has no effect.
• Calling screenshot() fails silently (or returns nothing usable) when running the Linux desktop binary — affects save-slot thumbnails and any custom UI relying on it. Web and other desktop targets are unaffected. 

Fixes for these are planned — will update this section as they land.

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Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Do i need to know how to code to use Jovel?
   Nah, Writing the story, dialogues and choices is done in simple YAML text file, which are highly intuitive and readable even if you're never writter a line of code before. BUT, if you're a developer, Jovel offers a Javacript scripting system to expand functionality when YAML isn't enough.
2. Can i customize the visual look of the game?
   Yep, customization is fully in your hands. Menu, dialogue boxes and settings screens are handled via simple HTML files.
3. Which platform are supported for exporting the finished game?
   With a single command you can export your game for web, Windows (x64) and Linux (x64 and ARM64).
4. ...wait, what about macOS?
   Currently the development engine is only available for Windows and Linux. macOS is not yet implemented (sorry).
5. Is Jovel free? Can I use it to create commercial games?
   Yep! Jovel is completely free and release under MIT license. This means you can safely use it to create and sell commercial games without paying any royalties.
6. What does it mean that the project is in "pre-1.0 phase"?
   It means the engine is fully functional but still under active development. There migh be minor buges (listed in the "Known Issues" section), and some features or formats might be undergo slight changes in future updates.
7. How can I contact you for support of feedback?
   The only way to get in touch, report bugs or share feedbacks is through the itch.io community board. There are no official social media accounts or other communication channels at this time.

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Roadmap

Here's what's planned for future releases. Things may shift around, but this is the general direction:

• Mobile support — iOS, Android and PWA builds from the same project.
• Spritesheet — yep, for now, spritesheets for the UI or similar elements aren't supported yet. I'll work on it.
• Spine integration — native support for Spine skeletal animations on characters and backgrounds.
• Visual editor — a GUI for writing and previewing scenes without touching YAML directly, aimed at writers with no coding background.
• Platform APIs — Steamworks and Game Jolt API integration for achievements, leaderboards and cloud saves.

Got an idea or a feature you'd like to see? Suggestions are very welcome!

*: Game assets by Sutemo (characters), Tokiko 220 (background), One Level Studio (UI)