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Web builds

Payments work in Ren'Py's web (HTML5) build, on your own site or embedded on itch.io:

  • Browser wallet: the player's wallet extension (MetaMask, Rabby, Phantom, ...) is already in the page, so the checkout opens right over the game. The option only shows when the page has a wallet for the chosen network, which includes a wallet app's own built-in browser on phones.
  • Phone wallet (QR) and manual transfer work as on desktop. On a phone, "Open wallet app" hands the payment to the installed wallet.
  • Copy buttons use the browser's clipboard; if the browser blocks it, the game says so. A Paste button on the payment screen and on the Restore screen fills in a transaction hash, if the browser allows it. It needs the browser's clipboard permission: when the player refuses, the game says so and they can type the hash instead. On the payment screen the hash is optional (the game finds the payment without it); on the Restore screen it is required.
  • The game watches the chain from the page, between frames, and never freezes.
  • The plugin's console messages (setup warnings, errors) are printed only in developer mode (config.developer). Ren'Py's web build shows printed text over the game, so a distributed build never shows them to players.

Your game must define config.save_directory (games created by the Ren'Py launcher do, in options.rpy). Without it, Ren'Py's web build keeps saves and persistent data in memory only, so receipts would be lost when the tab closes.

Your RPC endpoints must accept requests from browsers (CORS). All built-in endpoints do. If you add your own with rpc_urls= or add_chain(...), check them with uv run python tools/check_rpcs.py: endpoints marked web: BLOCKED are skipped by web players. Endpoints on the player's own machine or network (127.0.0.1, localhost, private IP addresses) don't work from a hosted web build either: browsers block them (Chrome's Local Network Access, and mixed content for http). Only public HTTPS endpoints work for web players.

Before you release a web build, test it once on its real home with a real wallet. On itch.io, upload it as an HTML game and pay a small amount with MetaMask (EVM) and with Phantom (Solana). Wallet extensions are expected to work inside itch.io's game frame, but only a real upload proves it for the wallets your players use.

To test the web build automatically, tools/run_renpy_web_e2e.py --sdk <sdk> (a Ren'Py SDK with the web platform installed) builds the game for the web and pays in headless Chrome against Anvil (needs Anvil, Playwright, and Google Chrome or Playwright's Chromium).