VM Retrospective - October 2025

October was a major milestone for Vine Moss Games. Last year around this time, I released the studio’s first ever project: Night Owls. This psychological thriller was my first try at creating a narrative story that excelled in character complexity while presenting gameplay in a unique, art-forward way. The result was a game I’m incredibly proud of to this day a year later, and one that earned it’s fair share of recognition, selected as a gHost’s choice for Scream Jam 2024, and selected as part of Indiepocalypse #61. This first project reaffirmed my ambitious goal of a game a month, and through the highs and lows of the year, it’s incredible to have stuck to that goal so far. No Room For Sharks marked the 10th VM game of 2025, and follows September’s game Incoherence as a free web-based project that incorporates gameplay in a much different way than any other game that follows it.

In my opinion, No Room For Sharks is the game that feels most like a demo project, having worked on it speedily for Scream Jam 2025 and keeping it as is while devoting energy to prepare for Dreamhack Atlanta. While I’m really pleased with how this version of the game turned out, I know that production on this game will continue at some point in the future. Since this is a very different outcome to the rest of the VM Games this year, I want to approach this retrospective in a shorter, streamlined way. So instead of giving three rights and wrongs for No Room For Sharks, here are some snapshots from October that led to this creepy game.

A Family Of Horrors

Before I properly brainstormed No Room For Sharks, I knew I wanted to tell a story about family cycles. The VM Games so far have explored romantic and platonic relationships, friends and lovers and strangers alike, but family relationships are a vast topic that is undoubtedly a critical part of our complicated humanity. Parents and siblings have the ability to define us and how we interact in the world - they often serve as role models or conversation trainers. Family influence is such an interesting topic, so I figured October’s game could use family as part of its core narrative and find where the fear lies in that.

Simply put, this game is about a woman that flees her family, yet her family returns in her dreams much too often, hurling insults and inflicting emotional wounds. During development, each family member was an opportunity to craft a truly menacing character that pushes the protagonist’s buttons in different ways. It flips the script on familiar horror games, and allowed me to approach writing in a different way than I have been so far this year. As a bonus, it was a delight to see our collaborating artist Estelle design truly terrifying people that are bound to give players plenty of spooks long after the year ends. All in all, this family shook up the development process in a much needed way, and it was this kind of exploration that set our studio up for a 10th consecutive narrative game.

Endless Rooms

Escape was a major keyword throughout development, and I wanted a mechanical system that gave players more interactivity yet created a disorienting experience that aligns with the idea of no true escape from family influence. In designing the rooms players navigate though, I had to keep the game’s scope in check - there was no feasible way to create a series of rooms for the player to move through in a week’s time. My solution for this was an endless room randomizer, where the player never actually moves from one room to another. Every time a player exits from one of the rooms doors, the room itself resets with a different configuration, giving the illusion that the player has moved but in reality reentered the same game scene. From there, I track how many times the room resets to trigger all the dialogue. It’s an efficient fix to the potential scope creep that would’ve derailed the project, though I’m still deciding on how to improve this system. I think players do become disoriented, but there is plenty of confusion that accompanies it that I want to resolve. Overall the mechanic looks and feels more dynamic than any other VM Game, so I feel proud of that accomplishment!

Dreaming at Dreamhack

Dreamhack Atlanta is one of the largest gaming events in the country, and having the opportunity to show off the Vine Moss Games’ 2025 catalogue was a dream in and of itself. No Room For Sharks was on display all weekend, and the reception was more than I could’ve hoped for. Whether it was praise for the art or story, questions about the game and studio’s ambitions, or crucial player feedback to take away for further development, this showcase experience was meaningful in-person playtesting that I’ve been missing. It’s truly a dream to get to show what we’ve worked so hard on throughout the year, and this showcase was more than enough motivation to persevere and continue building upon what Vine Moss Games is.

Final Thoughts and What’s Over the Horizon

Developing No Room For Sharks for a jam was always going to be a challenge. I had to restructure much of my planning and development priorities to create something fast yet polished enough to feel comfortable releasing alongside the rest of the year’s VM games. There was so much different about this game that excites me, and while I want to keep working on it, the mark of a new month means that November’s game is up to plate. In a similar fashion, November’s game is being developed for a jam and will debut at another showcase in Georgia. It’s a funny developmental repeat, but I’m more excited than ever to make the final game in the SHIFTING WORLDS theme set. Stay tuned for the November’s experiment, and thank you for taking the time to read a little about last month’s development.