Antiquarian Thomasina Bateman is writing a book on the barrows of England, documenting the treasures she finds buried within. When an intriguing letter summons her to the small village of Bewlay, tucked away in the remote countryside, she sets off by train with her assistant a day behind....
Antiquarian Thomasina Bateman is writing a book on the barrows of England, documenting the treasures she finds buried within. When an intriguing letter summons her to the small village of Bewlay, tucked away in the remote countryside, she sets off by train with her assistant a day behind.
Upon her arrival, however, the mysterious man who summoned her is nowhere to be found. Her assistant never arrives. A stubborn landowner refuses access to the barrow, and the locals are wary of this woman who is traveling alone and (gasp!) wears trousers.
The excavation of Hob’s Barrow is off to a rocky start. And then Thomasina starts having strange dreams…
A dark, complex and evolving storyline featuring interwoven elements from real English folklore.
Traditional point and click adventure game puzzles and interactions, with an easy modern interface.
A cast of intriguing characters, from suspicious villagers to sickly vicars to lordly landowners, all with their own unique stories and motives.
A distinct folk horror tone and grounding.
Evocative pixel-art graphics, featuring cut-scenes and engaging animations.
A suitably atmospheric original soundtrack from The Machine. The Demon. - one half of the duo behind the award-winning "Football Game" soundtrack.
Fiends in the furrows, the smell of damp soil, and a cat or two.
This is an excellent folk-horror point and click adventure that is well scripted, charming, unsettling and interesting. Pacing is good with puzzles being fairly easy but allowing for the story to flow. Will definitely scratch a folk horror itch. Art is good, if a little rough around the edges, but has a sort of lo-fi uncanny valley charm to it that actually enhances the experience. Addition of developer commentary is also fantastic. Well worth a look.
This a very traditional point & click adventure game, that stands out from the crowd with strong characters, story and atmosphere.
Thomasina Bateman travels to the village of Bewlay in the 19th Century to unravel the mystery of Hob's Barrow. This involves exploring Bewlay, getting to the know the locals, deciding who she can trust and using lots of objects on other objects.
With the Lovecraftian story (mostly) confined to one village, its cast of oddball locals and its brief cinematic interludes I thought this was reminiscent of Shadow of the Comet. The graphics have a nice, gritty, creepy quality that really adds to the atmosphere, with lots of nice touches to bring the game to life - the local wildlife scurries in and out of each scene and full-screen animated interludes punctuate dramatic moments. Puzzles are well sign-posted and solutions and outcomes are usually satisfying. Voice acting is strong and the characters and writing in general are very good.
Complaints are minor - the puzzles were a touch on the easy side for me, the last section of the game wasn't quite as strong (but that's almost inevitable with this kind of story and game) and while the music is good I don't think all of it suits the Victorian setting.
Overall I strongly recommend it. I finished it in a couple of sessions and it had me gripped to the end. A must buy if you're an adventure game fan, or like a Lovecraftian yarn.
Good old school graphic adventure. I enjoyed the game and the storyline. I ran into a couple of areas that required me to consult a walkthru but I attribute that to the gap in gameplay. I didn't play for about a week and lost the thread. I particularly enjoyed the barrow. Maybe because the graphics reminded me of The Fate of Atlantis. Worth playing for sure.
A lovingly crafted game that delivers a great horror story. The game makes an effort to build its setting with locations and characters that exist in the context of the setting and aren't just there to carry the story.
I love the graphics and sound - they are reminiscent of high quality MSDOS or Amiga games. The game sounds great, with solid voice acting and music that seems to perfectly hit what the developer intended.
It's not perfect. There's some technical jank - when your character moves far away or closer to the screen, they move at the wrong speed; and your sprite is scaled in a way that doesn't respect the art styles pixilation. There's also some audio crackling when certain background music tracks are playing.
In terms of puzzles - I don't like games with obtuse puzzles so I was glad to see this game's puzzles are on the easy side. All the puzzles fit the setting and your character. There's not many locations, you can hold space to see all interactive items on the screen, and your journal tracks intermediate goals - which is a great quality-of-life inclusion.
A criticism of the puzzles is that they are largely gated in a very linear manner. Each step only works in order. This makes the puzzles quite simple and probably many will think they are far too easy. At the same time, I found the linear gating frustrating because the next step is very often something you thought of earlier, just not when the game wanted you to try it. So worse than falling into the point-and-click pit of needing to exhaust every item on every interactive element; you are in the worse situation of needing to start over and also retry every previous interaction.
Anyhow, I still say this is a 5 star game for how well the game delivers a horror story. If you like the intersection of horror fiction and point and click adventures, this game delivers!
