The Excavation of Hob's Barrow

I hate to admit it, but after all these years the Latin lessons finally paid off for once.

The Excavation of Hob's Barrow is one of the most atmospheric adventure games I have ever played. From the first moment on, you're confronted with interesting protagonists that keep in the mind. It's a pleasure to interact with them, and containing a lot of dialogue, I have to say that there wasn't a single line of unnecessity. Hob's barrow is written in an excellent, thrilling, and entertaining way, offering some choices of answer, that give you the feeling that you decide how the story unfolds. Coming to the riddles, I found that they were fair and logical. They're mainly there to keep the story interactive, in my oppinion. I had to look into the walkthrough only once, when there was a scenery in which I simply didn't take a look at every pixel. Coming to pixels, the art style of Hob's Barrow is splendid! I couldn't imagine a more atmospheric piece of retro pixel art. The locations are beautiful, mysterious, and sometimes creepy, perfectly fitting to a story that could come out of a vintage mystery novel. One thing left to say: Hob's Barrow offers some options that keep things easier, like a 'quest log', if you ever don't know what to do next, and a quick travel between the locations. Clicking a spot twice also increases speed in getting there, making scenery switch a fast-paced action. Overall, Hob's Barrow offers a beautiful experience worth your time and money! Full recommendation.

At first I loved Hob's Barrow. Good voice acting and dialogue, compelling characters, attractive art, and a mystery to solve. I was drawn into the world, I felt sympathy for the characters, and I was eager to see what happened next. And then suddenly it went off the rails. First, the protagonist is supposed to be an archaeologist. She's a professional, she's been doing this for years, she knows what she's doing. Yet near the end she does something stupid and completely at odds with her experience. It's about as egregious as a firefighter forgetting to put on basic protective gear. Someone might say, "That's the point, she's supposed to be making bad decisions!", but it still feels too much like a horror story trope where someone leaves the gun behind because the plot demands it. Second, none of your choices matter. The ending is set. To be clear, I've enjoyed plenty of games with endings you can't change; even tragic endings can feel right if done well, as if the story has fulfilled a promise. But in this case I felt cheated. The ending didn't work at all for me, and I'm almost sorry I played the game.

tl;dr - If you're a fan of classic point & click adventures and you don't mind a lovely folk horror story in the spirit of the old Gabriel Knight games, give this a spin. If this came out in mid-nineties, it would have landed on the shelf with all the great adventures of that era. It's kinda hard to pinpoint any issue I could have with this game - anything it sets out to accomplish, it does well. The script, voice acting, visuals and music: everything is on point and contributes to the overall sense of doubt and creeping insecurity, on the same page eliciting a wonderfully immersive atmosphere and a strong sense of place and time. It's not overly long, the puzzles tend to be fairly logical and well woven into the overall story. The dialogue is surprisingly light-hearted and well written, along with the voice acting being brilliant as well. Also, there's some lovely dark humour scattered here and there. (MILD SPOILER: For example, that special cat formula moment near the end was delightful.)

I'm the perfect audience for The Excavation of Hob's Barrow, because my favorite childhood hobbies were playing point-and-click adventure games and watching folksy British horror movies. And here we have a game that marries those two hobbies in very interesting ways. Without giving too much of the plot away...the main character is an archaeologist who is determined to open a sealed burial mound that has a bad reputation among the local villagers. The mound is supposedly cursed, but our stalwart protagonist is a rational person and doesn't believe in curses. "Hogwash," she replies, whenever one of the villagers warns her not to interfere with Hob's Barrow. This plot is great fun, but it's also quite stereotypical. It reminded me of The Wicker Man, Lair of the White Worm, Doctor Who and the Daemons...yes, it's pretty much a greatest-hits compilation of U.K. horror classics. But on the whole, I don't mind that the storyline is derivative - it's actually fun to recognize the various influences. Also, the dialogue and characterization are strong and give the game its own identity. The retro graphics are okay, but the misty moorland setting gets quite drab and colorless after a while. I also regretted the lack of character portraits, which I think are important in largely dialogue-based games. The puzzles are mostly good and not too hard to figure out, though they get a bit frustrating in the late stages. For me, the game's real weakness is that the protagonist is stubborn and not as savvy as you, the player. YOU know that bad, dark-magic stuff is going on in this town, but you're playing a tiresomely rational person who keeps ignoring the danger and blundering into bad situations. I wish you had more agency and could actually impact the plot - but no, you're essentially on a fixed course, The game cries out for multiple endings but alas doesn't have them. (I'd even take multiple sad endings!) It's still good, though; a 3.5 rounded up for its style and commitment.