Little White Lies

Little White Lies is a short visual novel based on the classic 1930 song of the same name. I (Nicholas A. Ferrell) collaborated with Victor V. Gurbo to create this short piece for the Gaming Like It's 1930 contest/event here on Itch.io.

About the Story

An unnamed narrator finds a vinyl recording of Little White Lies while cleaning his room. He does not remember having ever seen the record and he does not recognize the artist, but he is familiar with Little White Lies. The song reminds him of a woman he cared deeply for in the past but who disappeared. As he recalls the original lyrics in his head, he remembers the time he spent with her, her little white lies, and how she disappeared from his life. Despite being conflicted, he plays the mysterious vinyl, which plays as expected save for a couple changes to the original lyrics. What happens after the record finishes playing is much less expected. The game features several choices and six distinct endings after very short branches, although the endings do not diverge greatly from one another.

Making the Game

Little White Lies is a collaboration between Nicholas A. Ferrell and Victor V. Gurbo. Who are we?

• Nicholas A. Ferrell: I am the administrator and editor of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal, and its short-form writing sister publication, The Emu Café Social. I write about many topics, but one of my common writing topics is visual novels.
• Victor V. Gurbo: Victor V. Gurbo is a singer-songwriter and frontman for Victor V. Gurbo & Co. You can learn about his music and band on his official website. Victor has also written articles for The New Leaf Journal.

Victor and I decided to work on a visual novel together for the Gaming Like Its 1930 contest. Because Victor is a proverbial music historian, I trusted him to find a good 1930 song entering the public domain to use as the inspiration for our game. He suggested Little White Lies, and I immediately agreed after reading the lyrics.

• Little White Lies article on Sheet Music Singer with link to the original sheet music.
• Articles noting Little White Lies' entry into the public domain on Copyright Lately and Wikipedia.

I used Ren'Py to script and build Little White Lies. I submit for the record that I am neither a programmer nor a coder. This is my first Ren'Py project.  But I think the final human-coded product is more than presentable enough for all normal purposes. I was also responsible for drafting the script and story of the game after Victor and I kicked around some initial ideas, but Victor made many contributions to the final script (especially in the "true end").

All of the songs in the game were arranged and recorded by Victor V. Gurbo and Mark Caserta, and mixed and mastered by Mark Caserta. Mark recorded the in-game video and Victor added their music and the lyrics. All but two of the background images in the game are Victor's original photographs and digital work (the two exceptions are the sky backgrounds and circular bench background, which are my photographs). Victor also retouched and edited all of the images for publication

The menus, text boxes, and buttons are all Ren'Py defaults. We use three sound effects in the game that I retrieved from Pixabay (links below). All of the fonts are from Google Fonts and licensed under the Open Font License.

There is no AI-generated content in this game, and I wrote the code by following the Ren'Py documentation and other Ren'Py resources around the web.

I created the Ren'Py project on January 18, 2026, and made my final edits on the 31st.

Licenses

Things Subject to Copyright: The script (referring to the story and in-game text, including choices), all background images, Victor’s music recordings, including video.

Script Exception: The lyrics of Walter Donaldson’s Little White Lies, which are re-printed in part in the script, are in the public domain.

Not Subject to Copyright: All of the in-game fonts are free to use pursuant to the Open Font License. Three sound effects (distinct from the music) are free to use under the Pixabay Content License. The text boxes, buttons, and menus all come from stock Ren’Py and are available under Ren’Py’s licenses.  (See below.)

Also Free to Use: You are free to draw whatever inspiration you will from my code, separate from the dialogue and story. If you like how I set up a specific transition, feel free to borrow it for your project (if my work gives you some ideas, credit would of course be welcome). Note however that this is my first Ren’Py project and I limited myself to using basic functionality outlined in Ren’Py’s documentation, so my code will most likely only be useful to people getting started with Ren'Py or people who are interested in seeing how this particular novel works.

Notes

I developed Little White Lies on a computer running Linux. I tested it in Firefox, Chromium-based browsers, and KDE Falkon. Victor tested it on Safari and found that it worked, albeit not as smoothly as it worked in my testing.  We did not have time to test on mobile browsers.  I would recommend running it in Firefox or a Chromium-based browser on desktop, but it may work well in other browsers.  If you have any issues, please report in the comments with as much detail as possible and I will look into it.

Concluding Developer Thoughts

I enjoyed working with Victor to create our first visual novel in a short time-frame. One could probably see everything the novel has to offer in 10-15 minutes. While I doubt that we will be challenging the top of the Visual Novel Database rankings with this piece, I hope that you give it a try and enjoy the simple story, choices, and most of all Victor's terrific music.

I thank everyone behind the development of Ren'Py for creating a free and open source tool and terrific documentation that allowed me to script a presentable visual novel, and do justice to the original Little White Lies lyrics and Victor's new take on the song, in just under two weeks with no prior development experience. I also offer my thanks to the creators behind the three sound effects I pulled from Pixabay, each of which adds something special to our final piece.

While I consider Little White Lies to be complete, Victor and I will work on developing an installable version with a few extra features, including an image gallery, music room, and director's commentary.

Special Thanks

• Ren’Py and all of its contributors for producing great and well-documented free and open source software.
• Sheet Music Singer for publishing the original sheet music and lyrics for Little White Lies.

Free Assets Used

• Sound Effects From Pixabay (presented in order of in-game appearance): SFX 1, SFX 2, and SFX 3.
• Fonts From Google Fonts and Available Under SIL Open Font License v1.1: PT Serif, PT Sans, Federo, and Cagliostro.
• Menu theme, text boxes, and other assets from Ren’Py (default assets).

Additional Information and Related Links

• New Leaf Journal article on the development of Little White Lies: Making My First Visual Novel: Little White Lies (link added 02/02/26)
• Newsletter Leaf Journal issue with additional discussion about Little White Lies: "Newsletter Leaf Journal CCLXVI 〜 Little White Lies" (link added 02/07/26)
• Music Video of Title Screen Version of Victor V. Gurbo's Little White Lies (created for WNYC's 2026 Public Song Project): "Little White Lies (Home Recording, Walter Donaldson Cover)" feat. Mark Caserta" (link added 02/01/26)