Her Story was developed by Sam Barlow, who previously worked on games such as Silent Hill: Origins (2007) and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009) at Climax Studios. Barlow had conceived the idea of a police procedural game while working at Climax Studios, but decided to become independent to create the game,[15] in order to develop a game that is "deep on story".[16] He became frustrated by publishers using kitchen sink realism as the reason behind rejecting game pitches, and found that becoming independent allowed him to create his own game of the sort.[17] He also wished to become independent after playing games like Year Walk (2013) and 80 Days (2014).[18] Barlow avoided development until he had an idea that was possible to execute. "I could probably quite easily have gone and made an exploration horror game ... but I kind of knew that there would be big compromises there because of budget," he said.[15] Barlow spent his savings to work on the game, allowing him a year of development time.[4] He followed through with the concept of Her Story, as it focused on an "intimate setting, dialogue and character interaction", which he found was often dismissed in larger titles.[15] Barlow felt particularly inspired to develop Her Story after seeing the continuous support of his 1999 game Aisle.[18] When referring to how Her Story challenges typical game conventions, Barlow compares it to the Dogme 95 filmmaking movement, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film Rope.[19]