The Excavation of Hob's Barrow

This is all about the story and not the gloss of graphics. Really draws you in to the essence of the game.

It might be age or regeneration, it just doesn't feel the same anymore. The "Point & Click Adventures" of Wadget Eye Games have always been my favourite type of games. I experienced crazy, scary, funny and/or sad moments while playing the Complete Blackwell Bundle, Gemini Rue, Shardlight, Technobabylon, Shivah,.. One by one masterpieces in my opinion. When Unavowed came out, I felt the first loss of nostalgia. It was still nice to play but the "magic" was a bit lacking. Still it had great mystery in a eery fantasy setting. In Hob's Barrow I just don't feel any magic at all. It still plays like the Good Old Point & Click but it feels as wrapped up rather fast and easy. Besides my own nostalgia issues, while most characters from the past had their own crazy/funny/smart personalities, they always made me feel as characters in a game-world. They would adopt habits from the real world but at the same time have abilities that would only be possible in a game. After all that's why I like to play games, to enter another world. Miss Thomasina (?) just doesn't have it... In my opinion she isn't a likable person. She could be your real-life neighbour though, the seriousness of her life/past are too much "taken from real life". I really don't care that her father had an accident that made him as a plant who has to be fed with a spoon 3 times a day because he can't stop himself from drooling on himself. WTF, yes I know that these unfortunate tragedies exists but I didn't choose to watch a reality TV show... This type of pulling your heart-string ain't what it used to be. And I can handle a lot. Maybe it's my age or maybe it's the fact that Miss Thomasina is this happy free-of-man woman who doesn't need a male in her life because she is the strong type of woman which her late father told her she could be. Almost sounds like a Zegler-brat. Oh, and she isn't in the mood to carry a piece of lumber through the city, but a stolen box her size ain't a problem at all.. Weird Weird

The story ticks all the boxes of a serviceable Lovecraft rehash, reminiscent of The Rats in the Walls or The Colour Out of Space, with a bit of modern folk horror imagery sprinkled on top. However, it never gets beyond "clanking its chains according to rule" to paraphrase Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature. Hob's Barrow adds nothing new or insightful to the genres of cosmic horror, folk horror, or point-and-click adventures that hasn't been done multiple times before. Sadly, there was potential here for at least an atmospherically dense and impressive game, but it consistently opts for the path of least resistance. The color of its eldritch horror is purple; almost every screen is composed using a rigid central perspective that often breaks up into a flat foreground and a muddy background without any visual tension. Lighting, rain, and background movement aren't integrated into the art itself but are instead implemented as overlays that just don't gel with the overall art style. The writing, design choices, and technical implementation of Hob's Barrow continually undermine its potential to create a truly dense atmosphere of rural dread. What remains is a serviceable if somewhat linear point-and-click adventure that 'just works'—but only in the most mediocre sense of the phrase.

The game is well-made, amazing atmosphere, characters, art and voicework, controls are good, a lot of quality of life (such as quick movement, fast travel and journal), mostly logical, not too convoluted situations to solve. Two stars because the only ending is a downer ending thanks to the character behaving as a complete idiot and ignoring every red flag on the last day. I had absolute displeasure finishing this game and seeing the story through. What a letdown.

Slow paced and just boring. I dont care about some english woman in the middle of the country trying to dig something up. It takes too long to get going and when it does get going, it's honestly dissappointing.