If you’ve never played anything from Wadjet Eye Games, you’re in for an experience! Wadjet Eye is a publisher of small indie games, primarily point-and-click games in the style of vintage DOS PC games like Unavowed (review here). Now they’ve brought us another indie point and click gem, this time from Cloak and Dagger Games!
The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is a point-and-click adventure about a female antiquarian (read archaeologist that keeps things) named Thomasina Bateman. Sounds exciting, right? This is no action game though, so don’t expect Thomasina to be the next Lara Croft or anything. Instead, she’s headed to the rural town of Bewlay. It’s the mid-to-late 1800s, a rail line has recently been installed through Bewlay, and Thomasina has been invited to excavate a barrow in outside of town. Barrows are Anglo-Saxon burial mounds that cover one or a multiple graves and are littered across the UK and parts of Europe.
Right from the start, things aren’t going right for Thomasina, but hey, you kind of expected that, right? This is a game that’s basically entirely based on story and character development too, so there’s no way that it’s getting ruined by a review. Instead, let’s talk about Thomasina and Bewlay for a bit. As you might expect, Bewlay is a typical rural English village, suspicious of outsiders, limited in population, and insular as all hell. There are only a handful of shops and not all of them are open at any given time. Thomasina is an educated urban woman from London and unsurprisingly, not immediately popular with the locals. You’ll have to use every ounce of charm and problem solving to get to where you need to be in The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow and some of those villagers will definitely surprise you!
Thomasina herself also has a lot going on. There are reasons she’s become an antiquarian that will become clear as you wind your way through the twists and turns of The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, mostly in the form of flashbacks that incrementally weave their way into the plot of the game. The entire structure is deftly woven to feel like an organic experience, putting together two disparate stories and slowly merging them to form surprisingly complex character development.
Bit by bit as the story unfurls, you’ll find yourself exploring more and more of Bewlay and the surrounding areas however. Doing so will require a bit of innovation as well, as this is a traditional point and click game. As such, you’ll be clicking on everything around you in order to find things to examine to advance the plot. Fortunately, Hob’s Barrow makes this abundantly easy on the Switch by allowing you to show every interact-able person, place, and thing on every screen. The overall design of the interface is quite good here and players will quickly learn how to make their way around Bewlay and it’s environs easily.
In addition to a quick highlight, double clicking on another portion of the screen will make Thomasina move almost instantly across the screen, speeding up gameplay if you don’t have the patience to wait. This allows you to skip rapidly through areas and keep the story moving. Once you get to a certain point, you’ll also unlock a fast-travel list of areas you’ve previously visited, but honestly, you probably won’t need it all that often. The double click travel is quite efficient and if you’re not sure where to go, you’ll be wandering about a bit anyway. There’s only one real problem with Hob’s Barrow and that’s that in the bar in Bewlay, Thomasina’s walk speed reduces to a crawl. It seems that there’s some sort of glitch that slows her down in the common room of the inn/bar, but perhaps it will be corrected by a patch in the future.
You’ll also be forced to manage a small inventory of items during The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, but don’t worry, this is also done efficiently. You won’t en d up with an endless supply of useless items and everything has a purpose that is generally clear. The devs over at Cloak and Dagger games really thought of everything here, and while opening and using the item screen isn’t immediately intuitive, it’ll be pretty clear what to do with most of them if you have any previous point-and-click experience. Combining things is easy to do and even if you’re not sure what to do next, you’ll be able to zip through your inventory fairly quickly.
Speaking of being not sure what to do, there are always helpful tips to keep you moving in the right direction. This is a very linear game overall and while there are plenty of things to do and places to go, there aren’t very many options available so if you can’t move forward, you’ve definitely missed something. Things don’t get particularly complex until about halfway through the game so if you think it’s too easy working your way through the puzzles in Bewlay, expect them to eventually get more challenging.
Not only does the gameplay slowly ramp up in difficulty but the plot ramps up in parallel intensity. The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is a darker game than it initially lets on. This is definitely a horror game, but it’s a slow burn to get to where things are really disturbing. The puzzles toward the end are definitely more obscure and you’ll have to really pay attention to solve them though. The game refers back to details you may have overlooked more than you might think, so even if some of the dialogue seems unimportant, it might not be. While you’ll have to be patient and attentive, this is a short game overall, so you’re really only looking at about 5 or 6 hours, less if you read fast and skip the spoken dialogue.
Yes, The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is fully voiced and the voice work is absolutely top tier. Thomasina’s voice actress, Samantha Béart, does a fantastic job conveying the complexities of the character and the confusion, happiness, and sheer horror that Thomasina experiences. Every other character has equally impressive voicework, resulting in a game that feels as much like a movie as it does a vintage-style point-and-click. Add to that a subtle and well-done soundtrack and well-designed sound effects and you’ve got an overall soundscape that not only complements the gameplay but honestly raises the overall quality of the game by several tiers. There’s no way that Hob’s Barrow would have the same impact without this level of care taking with the voice work and sound and you’ll definitely appreciate it while playing.
The visuals are also excellent in the game. Not everyone appreciates the large pixels of this style of game but if you’ve read this far, chances are good that you have at least a passing enjoyment of them. What’s great about The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow in terms of visual design is that the lack of clarity provided by this style of pixel art leaves more than a bit to the imagination. The lack of definition of the artwork leaves things to the imagination, amplifying the horror in a way that improves the game immeasurably. Being able to see everything clearly would honestly take away from the vibe that Hob’s Barrow creates, and this is a surprisingly immersive game. You genuinely want to find out what’s going on, what motivates Thomasina, and what exactly is happening at Hob’s Barrow itself.
While The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow isn’t a long game, it is unquestionably a great game. The script, voice acting, sound, and visuals are all excellent and the character development is fascinating and sometimes unexpected. This is a particularly enjoyable game and at only 5 or so hours total, one that can be finished in a lazy afternoon, allowing you to carefully consider the ending and really think about what happens to Thomasina and friends as she excavates Hob’s Barrow. At $15 it might seem a bit pricey for the length, but honestly the experience that The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow provides is worth every penny. This is a game that sticks with you, both because of the quality of the writing and the thoughts about the human nature and our reality that it generates by the end. While this is listed as a folk horror game, it borders on Lovecraftian and horror fans of all types will enjoy the experience. Just don’t expect a light and fluffy ending here…you definitely won’t be getting one!
This review is based on a digital copy of The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well on both. The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is also available for PC on Steam.