Toki

Toki is a minimalist visual novel engine designed to make every byte count.
Toki runs on pure Windows API commands without any of the bloat of modern runtimes, ensuring that your game’s final size is all game and no engine bloat.

Toki 1.0. August 5, 2025

I started development of Toki when I was 14, and originally created it for personal use in game development.

Download latest release:
latest.zip

Don't be afraid to send me your game! I would love to see how my engine is being used to create wonderful projects!

Scripting Logic

Toki’s scripting language is quite simple, and easy to learn.

Scripts in Toki tend to follow this format:

{sceneNumber
[command ~arg]
comment
}

Here's the commands use can use in Toki:

{0
This is a basic Toki script. Anything outside the command brackets is ignored, so feel free to leave comments like this anywhere.

[say ~This is a say command. This command says dialogue.]

[cg ~image.bmp] This command changes the background image. It only accepts .bmps currently, but I’m planning to give Toki a .webp loader in the future.

[play ~audio.wav] Plays a non-looping wav file. I plan to add proper looped audio in the future.

[wait ~5000] Waits for a given amount of milliseconds.

[turn~page] Clears the textbox.

}

The curly brackets represent a scene. Scenes should be defined with an opening bracket, a scene number or identifier, and an ending bracket.

You just learned the entirety of the Toki language.

Game Directory

In Toki, there’s 4 essential files you need to ship your game. Let's go over each one, what purpose they serve, and why they are necessary.

The base files required to make a Toki game.

game.exe

Toki is designed to be super easy to ship. The game.exe script parser that comes with your installation of Toki is also the shippable product. No compilation needed, just write your game in the Toki script, zip it, and ship it out.
Toki’s development process doesn't require any compilation, either. Just run the exe to test your game.

script.toki

script.toki is the script that your Toki game runs on. Without it, the parser has nothing to do. Toki cannot run without a script file. As of currently, Toki can only read the specific file named script.toki, however I have plans to allow multiple .toki scripts to be used in the future.

init.tokc

init.tokc carries information about the exe window. As of currently, it only contains the window name. But I have future plans to allow it to control the window size as well.
init.tokc is not required for Toki to run. ".tokc" stands for "Toki Configuration".

font.bmp

font.bmp contains the bitmap font Toki uses. This is a required file for Toki to run, as a visual novel wouldn’t be a visual novel without text. font.bmp is editable, and you can make your own bitmap font for your Toki game by using the default.bmp fontmap to get the spacing right.

default.bmp

Download Toki