Buletti
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She actually could be the MC irl. Does she have a name or is this AI as well?
Ren'Py Black Incense [S01E01] [Himeros Studios]
- Thread starter Himeros Studios
- Start date
gymnopedies
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- Dec 28, 2019
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is real perv lol.
but she look different in another pics
https:// es.erome.com/a/XVVa6eYK
allinon
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- Jun 23, 2025
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Thank you! Same to you as well! And rest assured with all the options available, Molly will have forgotten about Mathilde in no time. And as an added bonus, watch out for the dev diary tomorrow
Haha thanks for the added incentive! And always interesting to see people's tier list, I think at some point over the next week or so I will put a poll out on Patreon just to find out which scenes people enjoyed the most from the game.
I'd love to implement some short animations in time, and am fairly confident in saying there will be some implemented over the coming months, once I've found a good rhythm with the regular images+text release. I've not played around with AI animation yet but from the looks of things it shouldn't be too complex to retroactively turn some of the images into short animations once I have the time.
- Jun 23, 2025
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A quick update to say the S1E1 hotfix is now out - I have updated the links accordingly at the top of the post. The changelog is:
- Fixed issue with the floating Molly face when leaving the Dawnfellows HQ
- Fixed issue with some narration appearing as the name of the narrator whilst in the backrooms of Dawnfellows HQ
- Added six new achievements into the game including unlockable tarot artwork
- Added tooltips for all achievements in game that give more of a hint on how to unlock them when locked, and explain how they were unlocked once they are unlocked
- Updated the music - there are now three brand new extended tracks for the prologue, S1E1, and nsfw scenes, that come in at 1hr20 minutes of new/non repeated music in total, as I know a few people had felt that the soundtrack before was a little repetitive/slow.
Buletti
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One thing I am wondering: almost all RenPy VNs recognise my existing savefiles when I start a new downloaded updated version. But when I start BI, there are none. Afaik RenPy puts savefiles in 2 locations and most other VNs grab them from the user folder. But here I only have them if I copy them over manually.
I am using Linux so I cannot tell if it's working with Windows. But Most if not all other VNs I watch have the saves either on Linux or WIndows.
Is that a deliberate decision?
On that note: Usually in RenPy you just click the right mousebutton and then you are in the savemenu, click on a free slot, click right button again and are back at the story. Here you get to a menu screen, where you have to choose again to get to the savescreen.
Not sure, if it's necessary to invent the wheel again. I personally create a save for each choice in a VN, so it's pretty inconvenient compared to the "normal" way most VNs handle saves.
Also, do you have to go back to the Prologue and unlock the achievements again? For me they are all locked even though my MC had the episode with Mathilde.
Also:
(This is from the hotfix-version)
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- Jun 23, 2025
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Hmmmm no it isn't, and it should have been fixed with the Hotfix. If not then something else must have happened. I think it goes back to when I originally messed with save file locations as it was causing some weirdness when running from Mac download folders. I had thought I had solved the issue earlier today, but will take another look, as certainly intend for save files to carry over.
EDIT: Think I found the issue - will update with a short hotfix later this eve that patches that. Thanks for flagging!
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Buletti
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Something is strange with the savemenu anyways, because in other VNs when going to save and load menu it always displayes the last page I was on. Here it is on another site each time I open up the save menu.
- Jun 23, 2025
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Pretty sure I've fixed both issues now - have updated the links on the main post!
EDIT: Also fixed the slightly hilarious new floating face over the sword in your post above as well. That certainly isn't how the story is meant to end for Molly...
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I like this a lot. Unlike (seemingly) most people on here, I quite enjoy what is essentially a novel with a few images to help guide the imagination, and I think this game offers something different to most other projects on here, so keep up the good work!
Just a note that Cryptics seems bugged for me - don't think I have ever passed a check for it and the stat screen always shows that it is dormant regardless of my choices. This may (or may not) be related to the fact that sometimes it is called Cryptics and sometimes Analysis (e.g. when you pick the Capricorn star sign).
Just a note that Cryptics seems bugged for me - don't think I have ever passed a check for it and the stat screen always shows that it is dormant regardless of my choices. This may (or may not) be related to the fact that sometimes it is called Cryptics and sometimes Analysis (e.g. when you pick the Capricorn star sign).
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- Jun 23, 2025
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Thanks for flagging! I'll look into that. Yes, I had originally called the skill Cryptics, and then decided Analytics was a more fitting name, but by then had made several UI elements containing the word Cryptics that couldn't be easily changed back, so think there is a mix up in the system. I'll give it a scrub and reorient everything to cryptics in time for the next release and make sure it is working properly, as it is an important skill in this release! And thanks also for your kind words, I really appreciate it
Buletti
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Hmm, how important would you say it is to get back to the Computer then? The check also failed for me (I did however find the door in the bookshelf through another Check.)Thanks for flagging! I'll look into that. Yes, I had originally called the skill Cryptics, and then decided Analytics was a more fitting name, but by then had made several UI elements containing the word Cryptics that couldn't be easily changed back, so think there is a mix up in the system. I'll give it a scrub and reorient everything to cryptics in time for the next release and make sure it is working properly, as it is an important skill in this release! And thanks also for your kind words, I really appreciate it
Buletti
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Strange, save situation and floating face still remain for hotfix C for me. Well nvm, maybe you can fix it with the next update.
Wish you a happy new year and all the best for 2026!!!
Buletti
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Dev Diary 6: Season One Episode One
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10 minutes ago
Hello everyone — I hope you’re all having a great holiday season, wherever you are and however you’re spending it. I also hope you’ve had the chance to dive into Season One, Episode One of Black Incense. If not, this month’s
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, and the
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.
Experience the moment everything changes for Molly...
For those who’ve already played it, and especially to those of you supporting the game, thank you. Your encouragement, comments, and backing mean a great deal. Seeing people engage with the story makes every late night of writing worth it.
It’s been a few weeks since the
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. The run-up to Christmas was a blur of work getting the December release ready, followed by a short stretch of much-needed rest. But with the new year approaching, development is back in full swing. From this week onward, I’ll be returning to the usual rhythm of weekly dev diaries each Tuesday, keeping you updated as the next chapter takes shape.This week’s diary is all about Season One, Episode One - what’s changed now that we’ve left the prologue behind, what I learned during production, and what comes next.
A quick note - there are minor spoilers for the new release ahead, so if you want to go in completely blind, I’d recommend playing first and reading after.
So, without further ado…
Deeper and Slower Storytelling
The Prologue of Black Incense had a very specific purpose: it was a narrative character creator stretched across two decades of Molly’s life. It had to cover enormous amounts of ground in a short space of time, moving through childhood, adolescence, friendships, first sexual experiences, family influences, and the branching moments that shaped who she became. It was a wide lens. A montage. A life in motion.
Season One is nothing like that, because it isn’t supposed to be.
From this point forward, the story is no longer a sweep across twenty years. It’s unfolding in real time, sometimes across a day, sometimes across a night, sometimes across a week. Season One, Episode One covers roughly sixteen hours of Molly’s life. Future episodes will vary in scope, but none will resemble the broad, leaping structure of the Prologue.
The Prologue had thirty sex scenes, multiple countries, school arcs, jobs, friendships, and dozens of identity-defining choices because its job was to let you build a life. Now we’re inside that life, inside the story itself, and events have to breathe. Relationships will grow over episodes, not scenes. Mysteries will unfold over seasons, not minutes. The pace slows down because tension, intimacy, and consequence need room.
A slower pace does not mean less is happening. If you’ve played Episode One, you know that a single evening can spiral into something far stranger than anything Molly experienced in her first twenty years.
Stranger indeed...
There’s another shift happening underneath all of this, one I mentioned back in Dev Diary 3: the transition from choice breadth to choice depth.
The Prologue offered enormous breadth. Eighteen losing virginity options. Thirty different sexual encounters. Dozens of ways to map Molly’s early life. But once you picked an option, the scene played out one specific way. That was deliberate, in that the goal was to let players assemble the broad strokes of Molly’s past, not to build fifty variants of every moment.
From this point on, however, depth will be just as important as breadth.
Take the masturbation scene in Season One Episode One. Molly can first of all choose whether to watch porn, masturbate to a fantasy, or not masturbate. If she chooses to watch porn, she then gets four choices, and three of these choices have different dialogue results depending on previous sexual experiences (e.g. the player will have a totally different set of dialogue when watching lesbian porn if they have previously had a lesbian encounter, compared to if they have not), giving seven different ways the porn branch can play out. If Molly chooses to fantasise about a past sexual encounter, that opens up any of the thirty options from the prologue the player may have slept with to choose from, each of which has a unique tailored set of dialogue mixing memory with imagination with desire, playing on the psychological hooks behind each individual encounter. At the halfway point of fantasising about whoever Molly is fantasising about, she will hear Imogen moan loudly, and can then either choose to return to her fantasy, or to fantasise about Imogen and Theo. If she fantasises about Imogen and Theo, she has an initial two choices of how to picture them, followed by a further four choices on how she wants the fantasy to develop.
All in all once you count all the different variations it comes to just over fifty different ways one scene can play out. And that’s probably a little excessive (see lessons learned below) but if nothing else it does a great job at highlighting what depth can look like when it comes to player choice.
Spoilt for choice...
If there is one key takeaway from this dev diary, this is it: the Prologue was broad by necessity, the story from this point onwards is deeper by design.
Episodes going forward will not throw thirty sex scenes at you in one release. Instead, they will push hard on reactivity, character development, psychological nuance, and the sense that Molly’s past is always reaching into her present.
My hope is that as the story unfolds, the shift becomes something you feel intuitively: fewer abrupt leaps, more continuity; fewer disconnected vignettes, more cause and effect; fewer broad branches, more branches within branches that reflect the Molly you’ve built.
Lessons Learned and Finding the Right Scale
Looking back at this month’s release, there are two main lessons that stand out, both of which will shape how I approach future episodes.
The first is about scope. When I originally outlined Season One, Episode One, I estimated it would come in at around twenty-five thousand words. By the time I reached the finish line, it had grown to a little over seventy-five thousand. Most of that expansion came from the depth I built into the masturbation sequence. Writing bespoke fantasy paths for every possible Prologue partner was far more time-consuming than I expected. It was worth doing, as those personalised branches add a type of intimacy and psychological grounding that I’m very proud of, but it was also a clear reminder that depth scales differently from breadth.
I’m not frustrated with myself for overshooting; this is part of learning a new production rhythm now that the main story is underway. But I do want to be more deliberate going forward, because the long-term health of the project depends on a pace I can sustain for years rather than months. I’m already adjusting my planning to strike that balance properly.
The second reflection is a positive one. Image generation this time around was significantly smoother than during the Prologue. The tools are better, my pipeline is more efficient, and I’ve learned a huge amount about prompting, composition, and batch workflow. Scenes that once required long, iterative struggles now come together quickly without sacrificing quality. That improvement made a real difference in getting the release out before Christmas, even with the expanded word count.
Both lessons point in the same direction. The writing is getting richer. The art pipeline is getting faster. And as I refine the balance between ambition and sustainability, the overall production will keep tightening. That’s exactly where I want to be this early in the project.
Looking Ahead
So what happens next?
After taking a much-needed breather over Christmas, I’ve started work on Season One, Episode Two today. The working title is He Who Knows Does Not Speak.
My aim is to release the episode toward the end of January. As always, that date may shift slightly, and if it does I’ll be transparent about it. I’m setting myself a 30,000-word target this time, which is still the length of a short novel, but far more realistic than the 75,000 words Episode One expanded into.
There’s also one refinement I want to make alongside Episode Two. A few players mentioned something I’d already had in the back of my mind: that some of the Prologue sex scenes could use additional artwork to synchronise more cleanly with the progression of the text. I agree. The scenes work well as they are, but with the tools and my own knowledge improving, it now feels feasible to give those moments the visual continuity they deserve.
This isn’t about polishing endlessly; it’s a targeted quality pass that should only take a couple of days. My plan is to revisit those sequences, generate a handful of additional images where needed, and release an updated Prologue build in mid-January. It should give everyone something new to enjoy while Episode Two takes shape. I already created all the new sprites that will be needed a couple of weeks back:
Three characters you may recognise from your own playthroughs...
Next week’s dev diary will dig into one of the most important systems in Black Incense: how relationships work, how they evolve, and how I’m approaching them mechanically and narratively as the story deepens.
Until then, thank you again for reading, for playing, and for being part of this project as it grows. I hope you all have a great week, and a very happy new year.
— Himeros
Molly may forget, but I will never forget Mathilde. The french maid girlfriend is at a tier almost impossible to surmount. I look forward to the totally non-canon reasoning at the end to return to her side. Its not a 0% chance!
It probably is.
It probably is.
TLouis2
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- Mar 24, 2024
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Iirc the computer is a Cyber check so you should be fine? I did pass that.
+1 Handwork and +1 Somatics are flipped in Marchmain. I haven't played enough of the game yet to see if it happens anywhere else
ename144
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- Sep 20, 2018
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Interesting game so far. I'm not sure where the story is going, but it's off to a promising start and the artwork is quite effective; I've always preferred static images to rote animations.
I did notice a bunch of glitches, though (using the S1E1_Hotfix_C_pc file from the OP).
Good luck on the game, Himeros Studios!
I did notice a bunch of glitches, though (using the S1E1_Hotfix_C_pc file from the OP).
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Good luck on the game, Himeros Studios!
- Jun 23, 2025
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Thanks - really useful. Have fixed all of these, just working on a couple of extra bits then will update the links shortly!