When comparing Polycode vs Ren'Py, the Slant community recommends Polycode for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” Polycode is ranked 32nd while Ren'Py is ranked 39th. The most important reason people chose Polycode is:
Polycode uses Lua and C++ to create native applications for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Mobile platforms are planned for the future.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Can create portable native applications
Polycode uses Lua and C++ to create native applications for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Mobile platforms are planned for the future.
Pro Free and open source
Polycode is free and open source (released under the MIT license). The source code is freely available on GitHub.
Pro IDE for 3D editing
Recently, the editor and its integrated tools have been released in compiled form. Features coding and scene editing in one application.
Pro C++/Lua
Polycode is distributed in a C++ form as well as with IDE. And there's an additional LUA-based scripting system.
Pro Cross-platform
Available on Windows, Linux, OSX, iOS and Android.
Pro Active and friendly community
Pro Reasonably good at creating puzzle and point-and-click games
Cons
Con Abandoned
The project does not seem to be maintained anymore: there has been no new release nor commit since mid-2015.
Con No mobile support
Doesn't have support for Android or iOS.
Con Not for every genre
While technically capable of creating 2D games in any genre, Ren'Py excels in creating visual novels and has a reasonable feature set for creating puzzle and point-and-click games. Other genres are best tackled by other engines.
Con Outdated Documentation and official built-in tutorials
Unfortunately, you will have to hunt relevant info on how Ren'py script works. The Ren'Py dev has the working tutorials on his Patreon, other than that you might as well just code in Python.
Con Requires knowledge of Python to use
