Ren'Py Black Incense [Prologue] [Himeros Studios]

[Buletti]

Incredibly quick off the mark, I'm impressed thanks as always for posting these for people to read here!

Cannot promise to make it every time

 

[iscokeit]

This looks interesting.

 

[DolorHic]

Thank you for the very kind review and for taking the time to write that, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

In terms of the gallery - I mostly put it in because most other VN games have them, and it was a relatively quick and simple thing to do (I just recycled the custom UI assets I had made for the save / load screens). I'm not usually one to use galleries myself in games, but I know some people enjoy them, and there didn't seem to be any harm in it. What I do think it is useful for (and has already been used for this purpose twice in posts on this thread) is for completionists who want to know if they've played every possible path. It's a quick and easy way of showing if they've missed any scenes. As with the poster above, I'll certainly consider a scene replay option at some point if I get time, but it would take a lot more coding than a simple gallery (especially given certain scenes can play out multiple ways in different play throughs) so it won't be a priority for the next few releases at least.

And yes, I actually spoke about this very thing in my second dev diary last week (

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). It was a lesson learned for me - I had made a very rough bullet point plan of scenes, then generated art, then wrote the scenes. And the scenes grew in the writing so the art didn't quite join up. In time I'd love to go back and fill in some of those gaps. Rest assured from now it will flow a lot better, I've been jumping back and forth between artwork and writing a lot more whilst writing the next release (also easier to do as the prologue was huge and each release from now on will be smaller in order to hit my target of a release every month).

That's all very fair. I'm not one to replay scenes I've already seen either unless they're exceptional, but well-written female POVs are so rare in this space that it would be a shame to never be able to come back to them. I think the JDMOD for Good Girl Gone Bad and the way it can account for every choice or combination of choices is the gold standard for a scene replay when there are so many variables.

That I am essentially nitpicking is a good sign, in any case. Looking forward to the update!

 

[MiltonPowers]

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to the fourth Black Incense development diary. The writing for the next release is nearing completion (with image generation also coming along nicely), and I’m on track to share it with you later this month. I can’t wait for you to see what’s coming next.

A quick housekeeping note before we begin: my Reddit account is currently suspended for reasons I’ve yet to discover. I followed every sitewide and subreddit rule carefully (I even had a spreadsheet to track them given how strict some mods can be), so I suspect it’s a mistake from some automated process. If it isn’t resolved soon, I’ll simply create a new account. I just wanted to mention it here so no one thinks I’ve vanished from the platform. Development is continuing exactly as planned.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about something central to how Black Incense works beneath the surface: the traits and skills system, and how it shapes every decision you make in the game.

Character Stats in Black Incense
I’ve always liked games with stats. They give you the sense that your character isn’t just a blank slate, but a reflection of the choices you’ve made, a living record of who they are and what they’ve been through. I knew from the beginning that Black Incense needed a system like that: one that allowed for deep character customisation, meaningful differences between playthroughs, and a way for success and failure to flow naturally from the kind of person the player has shaped Molly into.

But the usual RPG attributes didn’t fit. Black Incense isn’t a world of warriors and armour classes. It is the story of a 19–20 year old woman navigating modern London and the darker, stranger layers beneath it. Strength and toughness mean far less here than subtlety, composure, or social awareness. I wanted a system to reflect that.

The result is something custom-built for this story: a stats system designed for a game about power, secrecy, temptation, and transformation. It’s built around two interlinked layers: Traits and Skills, which together define how Molly sees, reacts to, and influences the world around her.

Just one possible variation of Molly. Yours may vary...

Traits
The easiest way to think about Traits is that they define who Molly is, while Skills describe what she learns. By the end of the Prologue, her Traits are largely set as the product of her upbringing, experiences, and personality, whereas her Skills will continue to evolve as the story unfolds. Traits form the foundation of her character: the fixed parts of nature and nurture that shape how she sees and reacts to the world.

When designing them, I wanted something that felt true to Molly and to the kind of story Black Incense tells. I divided her Traits into three broad aspects: Body, Mind, and Soul. Each aspect contains two core traits, together covering the full spectrum of human capability I wanted the game to reflect.

Body Traits

• Vitality: Physical health, endurance, strength. The fitness of the body.
• Finesse: Coordination, grace, precision. The ability to act with control and subtlety.

Mind Traits

• Intellect: Logic, analysis, memory. The sharpness of conscious thought.
• Empathy: Emotional intelligence, charm, reading others. The art of understanding and influence.

Soul Traits

• Intuition: Instinct, perception beyond reason. The quiet voice that notices what the mind can’t explain.
• Willpower: Focus, determination. The alignment of desire and action.

A few people have asked whether Intuition and Willpower traits imply that Black Incense will include overt supernatural elements. I’d rather let the game answer that question itself. The world of Black Incense is one where sceptics, believers, and cynics all coexist, where every strange occurrence can be read as either occult or psychological. There are no fireballs or monsters here, only mysteries of perception and belief. How you interpret this game is up to you, and I look forward to reading people’s thoughts about this as the story progresses.

If you’ve already played the Prologue, you’ve seen how Molly’s Traits (and her starting Skills) are shaped by the choices you make across the first two decades of her life, including her star sign, archetype, clique, hobbies, relationships, and more. By the end of that sequence, the kind of person she’s become is largely set. After that point, Traits change little; they define the parameters of who she is, while her Skills define what she can still become.

The system allows for different styles of play. You can specialise Molly in two Traits, giving her sharper definition in certain areas (with a minor boost in a third), or build her as a generalist jack of all trades. A specialist Molly might unlock slightly more unique opportunities tied to her strengths, but there’s no “correct” build. You can play her as intuitive and charismatic, logical and agile, physical and wilful, or any other combination that fits the story you want to tell. It is entirely up to you.

Skills
If Traits define who Molly is at her core, Skills represent what she has learned, and the abilities she can train, refine, and adapt as her story unfolds. Each Trait connects to three related Skills, forming a network of eighteen in total. Together they reflect the full range of things Molly might attempt in a world like Black Incense: physical, intellectual, social, and psychological.

I wanted the list to feel broad enough to capture modern life and the particular mix of mystery, temptation, and danger at the heart of the game. These are ways of expressing how Molly interacts with her environment, with other people, and with herself.

Vitality Skills

• Athleticism: Your speed, stamina, and physical capability for dynamic movement
• Martial Arts: Your trained combat technique and ability to apply force with discipline
• Sensory Acuity: Your heightened awareness of sight, sound, touch, taste, and bodily positioning

Finesse Skills

• Handwork: Your fine motor precision with tools, instruments, and mechanical tasks
• Stealth: Your ability to move quietly, unseen, and without drawing attention
• Somatics: Your physical attunement and responsive coordination with other bodies

Intellect Skills

• Cyber: Your skill with computers, digital systems, and networked technology
• Cryptics: Your ability to decipher patterns, codes, and complex problems
• Erudition: Your depth of general knowledge across many fields

Empathy Skills

• Charisma: Your ability to inspire warmth, trust, and attraction in others
• Dramatics: Your talent for performance, roleplay, and emotional expression
• Social Media: Your skill at curating your image and influencing perception online

Intuition Skills

• Sixth Sense: Your knack for sensing danger, tension, or unseen events
• Second Sight: Your flashes of foresight and perception beyond the obvious
• Animal Magnetism: Your instinctive rapport and ease with animals and living beings

Willpower Skills

• Endurance: Your capacity to withstand stress, fatigue, and hardship
• Influence: Your power to impose your will and steer others through sheer determination
• Manifestation: Your ability to turn your visions and desires into tangible reality

The first twenty years of Molly’s life determine her initial spread of Skills, shaped by the countless decisions you make along the way. From there, though, the system opens up. Skills will evolve through experience and repeated use as you progress through the story.

Implementing Traits and Skills in Black Incense
On paper, this system might sound complex, but in practice it’s straightforward. Like in most role-playing games, there are moments when Molly’s success or failure depends on a stat check. Maybe she’s trying to slip past a security camera, charm someone into revealing information, or hold her nerve in a dangerous situation. In those moments, the game quietly checks her relevant numbers in the background to decide the outcome.

Most of these will be skill-based checks, since each skill already factors in the trait it’s tied to. Occasionally, there will be direct trait checks where only the broader attribute applies, for example, a test of pure Intellect or Willpower.

Under the hood, it works like this: for any check, I set a target score in the code. If Molly’s total meets or exceeds it, she succeeds and moves down one narrative branch; if she falls short, she fails and experiences a different outcome.

There’s no random number generation in Black Incense. While RNG can be a great mechanic in many games, I don’t think it adds much to this one. Since you will never know the exact thresholds for success, every risky choice still carries weight without needing to implement a system of dice rolls.

Here’s how those calculations fit together. Trait checks are simple: if a scene calls for Intellect, the game uses Molly’s Intellect score directly. Skill checks are slightly more nuanced, blending the relevant trait with the skill derived from it. For example, Martial Arts draws from both Vitality and Martial Arts.

To keep both traits and skills meaningful, I use a simple formula: half the relevant trait score (rounded up) plus twice the skill score. Since traits are rated out of ten and skills out of five, the total possible value for any check is fifteen.

So, if Molly has a Vitality of 8 and Martial Arts of 3, she would score 10 out of 15 on that check. Strong, but not infallible. Whether that’s enough depends entirely on the difficulty of the moment.

And if all this is making your eyes glaze over, don’t worry, the game handles it automatically. All you really need to remember is simple: high numbers help, low numbers don’t. Build the version of Molly you want to roleplay, whether that’s a quick-thinking manipulator, a graceful infiltrator, or a stubborn survivor. The system will take care of the rest.

Black Incense's backend every time you encounter a skill check

No Bad Options
I mentioned earlier that there are no “bad builds” in Black Incense, and that’s a deliberate design choice. I talked a lot about this philosophy in last week’s dev diary, but it bears repeating. My job as a developer is to help you tell the story you want to tell, not to punish you for the way you choose to play. It’s the same principle that guides a good DM in tabletop role-playing. The player sets their direction, and the world responds.

If you’re unsure how to distribute your points on your first playthrough, don’t worry. No combination of Traits or Skills will ever lock you out of major storylines, relationships, or factions. You won’t hit a game over because you didn’t invest another point in Vitality at the start. Instead, different builds will open different perspectives, new ways to solve problems, uncover secrets, or approach challenges, without closing off the others entirely.

The system exists to amplify the experience, not to turn it into a numbers puzzle. Your Molly’s strengths will shape the tone and texture of her story, but the heart of the game remains choice, consequence, and character.

That’s all for this week. As always, thank you to everyone supporting Black Incense. Your encouragement and feedback make a real difference. Feel free to leave any questions in the comments or just tell me what build you are most excited to play in your game; I’m always happy to chat about design or plans for future updates.

Next week, as we move closer to release, I’ll be talking a bit about how I’m structuring paid and free versions of the game from this month onwards, and how funds from this project will be used to speed up production and keep improving quality.

Until then, thanks again, and have a great week.

Himeros