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The Excavation of Hob's Barrow

JoeK

By JoeK,
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JoeK

JoeK

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The new one by Wadjet Eye Games. They always do genuinely interesting stuff, working within the 'traditional' pixel-art style of peak adventure games, and this one looks no different. I have to say I was completely oblivious to it before I saw the review in eurogamer here:

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/the-excavation-of-hobs-barrow-review-an-adventure-game-with-depth

 

Looks great, and for a tenner I may well bite! 

 

 

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imp

imp

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Looks to be channelling a bit of The Borderlands (the indie film) too. Never played a Wadjet Eye game despite having a couple in my steam library, but this looks like great fun. Looking forward to getting stuck in over the weekend.

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imp

imp

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Played through this over the weekend, thought it was a cracking little game.

 

The voice acting was variable in quality, but generally good. The puzzles were very straightforward for the most part, but I think this works in to the benefit of the experience—the strongest element of the game is the narrative, and I wouldn't have wanted the puzzles to get in the way of the storytelling, which is very accomplished indeed. The atmosphere is absolutely spot on for folk horror, the colour palette, graphical style and moody synths all beautifully combining to create a very engaging whole. I love its particularly restrained English folklore sensibility, which I think is pitched just right throughout, never going off too far into realms of generic fantasy. It definitely wears its influences on its sleeve, but I think in the genre of horror it's no bad thing to work within the established formula.

 

The narrative structure isn't much to write home about by itself; the whole game is framed as a reminiscence, but basically told in chronological order with some flashbacks. However, the way it portions out clues, questions, and answers in the overarching mystery as you play is very satisfying indeed—I found myself fully engaged once I got stuck in. I think there are a fair few lines in there that could have been tightened up, but I thought the story was impressively well-told and the dialogue was on the whole charming throughout.

 

The main character of Thomasina is an interesting one. I think she's pretty well balanced; she has an interesting past and believable motive for being in Bewlay, but is actually fairly unobtrusive during the game, rarely getting in the way of your ability to piece the whole thing together. I wasn't massively keen on some of the VO direction for some of her lines - occasionally they would jar a bit with the atmosphere established by a previous scene or sometimes came off a bit too modern for the setting, but I know very well how games can change during development and going back and fixing audio isn't always possible. I would say I liked her on balance and thought she was well-crafted for the type of story being told.

 

I loved the close-up pixel art cutscenes peppered throughout the game - simultaneously grotesque and evocatively animated. I do miss the old-school charm of suddenly getting an ultra-detailed close-up with slightly wibbly animation mixed in amongst the standard pixel art limitations of the standard point and click adventure side-on view. Perfectly suited for horror!

 

In terms of UI, I really would have liked two things; a pause button during dialogue (the standard menu button skips text while dialogue is active, which was a little annoying), and a dedicated  inventory button. The latter probably overly affected me as I was playing on mac and often overshot the space at the top of the screen that would bring down the inventory and instead bring down the mac menu bar, obscuring most of the newly opened inventory. Other than that though, it controlled as well as you would envisage, with all the good modernisations you'd expect these days like a button to highlight interactable objects and double clicking to immediately transition to an adjoining screen.

 

All in all...top stuff!

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Anne Summers

Anne Summers

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I'm playing through this at the moment and am totally in love with it - however I'm at a point where I might have run into a bug, and just wanted to know if anyone can let me know if I'm on the right track or if I'm doing something wrong -

 

(spoiler for not long after I've convinced the landowner to let me excavate)

 

Spoiler

So I need to get some cakes to give to the Lord to convince him to lend me his men to help with the dig. The old lady in the church has the cakes but won't talk to me about them as she is grieving her husband. Her husband's sparse grave is outside, and decorating it with some flowers seems to be a good way to get in her good books and convince her to give me the cakes. However, the only flowers I can find that seem suitable are growing outside the Lord's manor house, and I can't pick them - clicking either "look" or "pick up" on them just gives me the line of dialogue "Some fine looking flowers". 


If I try to use the knife on them (to cut them) it just tells me "I can just pick them up" - which leads me to believe I should be able to pick them up. But I can't! 

Have I run into a bug or is there another way to get them, or should I be thinking about something else if I want to get the cakes?

 

 

 

 

edit: going to @imp as he seems to have finished it so is presumably someone who can help me!

 

Another edit:

Spoiler

it's ok, I worked it out - for some reason I just had to speak to the old woman again and confirm that she wanted the flower before the game would let me pick it, even though I'd already worked out that was what she wanted. 

 

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Anne Summers

Anne Summers

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Just finished this. It's a super-excellent game. Definitely recommended to anyone who enjoys an old-school point 'n' clicker. 

Spoilers regarding the ending:

Spoiler

Couldn't quite believe how it ended, pretty shocking and horrifying, but I guess that's what I should have expected from a horror game! After I finished it I looked online to see if I'd missed a chance to get a "good" ending as I was sure there was going to be a way to get Thomasina to save her father. But there isn't ... like I said, I guess, horror game ...

 

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LaveDisco

LaveDisco

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4hrs into this on Deck. It's fun to play such an British game. A Lady from Derby, caught the train from Bakewell? It feels like a retro amiga game in the best possible way, but with very modern narrative chops. It's very creepy, but understated - I'm really enjoying it.

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