HomeReviewsThe Excavation Of Hob’s Barrow
The Excavation Of Hob’s Barrow review: an emotive and doomy folk horror adventureDreadful as in ‘full of dread’
Dreadful as in ‘full of dread’
The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow - Teaser Trailer!Watch on YouTube
The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow - Teaser Trailer!
As well as the voice acting, Hob’s Barrow has an appropriately creepsome soundtrack, making fabulous use of the juddering bass tones that put all humans and related monkeys automatically on edge, and isn’t a stranger to unsettling lighting. Evil in this game is a sick purple. Most of all, some praise should be especially given to the several horrible close-ups that pop up: Thomasina’s eyes, wide in shock, a malevolent cat as he crawls onto your bed; round eyes over a slack, downturned mouth with little peg teeth in it. Devs Cloak And Dagger Games can coax extraordinary depth and motion from their pixel-art and then use that to repulse you.
It takes Thomasina about a week, during which time things get increasingly eldritch, and flashbacks to her childhood are woven in. The puzzles themselves are alright (I only got properly stuck once, right near the end, and it was because I was being silly) and pretty logical, but encourage a slightly sideways angle on the logic. One solution needs you to make a poultice to treat arthritis, so an old man can milk his goat. Others are easier if you already know where fairies live, or what a horse’s favourite treat is.
There’s always a visible ladder between them. You can see most of the rungs further up at “get this woman some goat’s milk”, back down to where you are, which is at “cannot milk goat”, and know that you need to go via “steal produce from uninvolved market seller”. It’s just a case of figuring out the gaps, and honestly, it probably won’t take you that long. Hob’s Barrow uses the expected streamlined point and click controls to make things easier (you can highlight all interactable items in a scene, there’s a mouse-over inventory at the top, and you click and drag to use an item on something else), and all told you’re probably looking at around four hours to unleash terrible eldritch forces that should be left well alone. Not a bad afternoon’s work.
The trouble is, she believes it’ll lead to something good, but you know that it will very much turn out bad - and you know because future Thomasina keeps telling you. When the charming local lord turns up he has “I am a smiling villain!” practically tattooed on his forehead. A surprising link to Thomasina’s father is clearly extremely bad, not good. You are at odds with the Thomasina exploring Bewlay, player knowledge and character knowledge diverging in a way that enhances the game, because every step forward gives you the same feeling as Randy in Scream trying to explain the rules of horror movies to everyone else.
I still solved all the puzzles because surely at some point there’d be a puzzle that averted disaster for Thomasina. But this is a beautifully dank, damp, gloomy folk horror. There’s no way to save Thomasina. But you’ll try, anyway.
