This article originally ran in Back Alley Games Issue 21, December 2025

From Castlevania to Resident Evil, the horror genre is full of gothic castles, incomprehensible living horrors, and cryptic notes. So many notes.

Requiem, the latest effort from solo developer Justin Herrick, is no exception. Players are taken on an atmospheric walk through an eerie castle, beginning in a snowy courtyard and concluding in a darkened hallway with a fall into the void.

The aim is to uncover the story of “M” and “L,” told through eight diary entries. The writing is well done, revealing enough to prop up the atmosphere without truly giving anything away.

“For this project, the goal was to make something that had a vibe,” Herrick said. “I wanted people [to feel] immersed in a creepy atmosphere, compelled to move forward but nervous about what was around them.”

What is around the player, besides the cold stone walls, is floating eyes. Their squinting gaze is certainly off putting, and the contrast of their 2D shape with the 3D environment is jarring in a way that supports the Lovecraftian-inspired horror of the game.

Besides Lovecraft, Herrick also cites Bloodborne and the Amnesia games as inspiration for this project. He called Requiem a prologue and said that he may expand it into a fuller project in the future.

“I’ve been doing hobby game development for a long time and would love to bring a full game to market next year,” he said.

Herrick’s game development experience has mostly been in the context of game jams, a format he prefers because of the ways that a restrictive time frame can alter scope and design philosophy.

“The time frame is essential for forcing a particular scope and focus among participants,” he said. “I find [game jams] immensely helpful as practice and as a way to see what may work as a full game.”

This applies to Requiem as well. Because of the time frame, Herrick chose to prioritize what he calls the “vibe” of the project, forcing the gameplay to fit the story, instead of the other way around. Despite that, though, he also stressed that having a playable product is of utmost importance.

“It is difficult to keep a vision alive in your head when there is nothing to hold in your hands at the end of the day,” he said.

This split focus led to a development process that Herrick described as being backward. He worked on the game over screen, then the starting menus, then more core mechanics. Those elements are important but tend to be rushed in at the very end, according to Herrick.

By giving lots of attention to these often overlooked portions of a game, he was able to make a project that feels complete despite its small size.

In addition to the unorthodox structure of this project, Herrick also attempted to change his workflow to be more sustainable than his past efforts. He describes the process as loose, and says that he only worked on the game for a few hours in the morning and evening of each day.

“In the past, I’ve always treated game jams as this ‘drop everything’ time frame, where I’d devote time to nothing else until the jam was over,” he said. “But that’s tiring and stressful, and I was committed to this being an enjoyable experience the entire way through.”

Focusing on enjoyment over urgency seems to be Herrick’s new philosophy, as he said that he has “done the full bucket list” as a game developer, and plans to only make work that he deeply cares about and finds personally rewarding.

“I hope sincerely to do more art that helps people in some way,” he said. “I plan to do more game development and ideally find a way to make it sustainable for me.”

Play Requiem at https://jah2488.itch.io/requiem-chicaghoul-2025