The police interviews focus on the man's wife, Hannah Smith, portrayed by British musician Viva Seifert.

Barlow eventually decided to create a police procedural game, and incorporate live action footage.

[7] Hannah's answers are transcribed, and the player find clips by searching in the database for words from the transcriptions, attempting to solve the case by piecing together information.

[8] The interview tapes feature a woman who introduces herself as Hannah Smith (Viva Seifert), whose husband, Simon, has gone missing, and is later found murdered.

Florence, whose husband died during the war, desperately wanted to have kids, but did not believe in remarrying, so she faked the death of one of the twins to claim one for herself.

[9] At the end of the final interview, Eve says that Hannah is "gone ... and she's never coming back" but mockingly asks "can you arrest someone who doesn't exist?".

[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.

[19] 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.

[24] He also noted that it felt "natural" for it to be released on mobile devices, as they are regularly used to watch videos and search the internet; similar tasks are used as gameplay mechanics in Her Story.

[23] As development neared completion, the game underwent testing, which allowed Barlow to "balance some aspects" and "polish items together".

[22] The interface design was inspired by Barlow's appreciation of the police procedural genre, commenting that "the conceit of making the computer itself a prop in the game was so neat".

[2] The game's concept was inspired by the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999), which Barlow found depicted police interviews being a "gladiatorial arena for detectives".

[16] Barlow intentionally made the game's opening screen to be "slightly too long", to immediately notify the player of the slow pacing that would follow.

[32] He took this concept of recurring themes and threads, and decided to "move beyond the clearly scripted stuff" when developing Her Story.

He found that the attraction of Serial was the lack of a definitive solution, noting that "people lean towards certain interpretations ... what makes it interesting is the extent to which it lives on in your imagination".

[28] He felt that Seifert is "very good at picking up a line and intuitively pulling a lot of the subtext into her performance", which led him to believe that she was "perfect" for the role in Her Story.

[33] When Barlow asked Seifert to audition, he sent her a 300-page script, which he managed to reduce to 80 pages, by altering font size, as well as some dialogue; she accepted the role.

[32] Seifert felt that there were small nuances in her performance that may have "added some twists and turns" for the player that Barlow had not anticipated.

[34] The game's seven police interviews were filmed roughly in chronological order[7] over five days,[34] in a process that Barlow called "natural".

[4][7] When filming was complete, Barlow wanted to give the impression that the videos had been recorded in 1994, but found digital filters were unable to capture this time frame appropriately.

[22][27] Barlow played the part of the detectives during filming, asking scripted questions to Seifert's character,[36] but is never featured in Her Story.

[7] When watching police interviews for research, Barlow found himself empathising with the interviewee, which inspired him to exclude the detective from the game.

[37] Barlow felt that removing the detective from the game empowers Seifert's character, allowing the player to empathise.

[16] When writing the script, Barlow generally avoided supernatural themes, but realised that it would involve a "slight dreamlike surreal edge".

[23] He ultimately used eight tracks from musician Chris Zabriskie,[40] and found that his music invoked nostalgia, and had a "modern edge".

[45] Polygon's Megan Farokhmanesh noted that Her Story "nails the dark, voyeuristic nature of true crime".

[52] Eurogamer's Simon Parkin found the effects of the narrative to be similar to well-received HBO thrillers, particularly in terms of audience attention.

[46] Chris Kohler of Wired similarly described Seifert's performance as "so captivating that I couldn't imagine this game working any other way".

[57] Katie Smith of Adventure Gamers wrote that Seifert is convincing in the role, particularly with small details such as body language, but was startled by the lack of emotion.

[51] Albert of IGN felt that the searching tool was "gratifying", and positively contributes to the pacing of the game,[48] while The Washington Post's Thomsen wrote that the database mechanic created "contemplative gaps between scenes", allowing for "poignance and power" within the narrative.