The Excavation Of Hob's Barrow review: an emotive and doomy folk horror adventure

It's tough making a story where you establish early on that your main character will still be alive at the end. In The Excavation Of Hob's Barrow, a point and click, small town, folk horror adventure game, the events are narrated by the main character Thomasina, writing in the future, and the game walks a slightly different line. Rather than successfully making you believe a character you know survives is in peril, all the way through The Excavation Of Hob's Barrow you are aware that Thomasina in the future is alive but, somehow, definitely not okay. And you believe you can save her anyway.

This looming dread, growing increasingly loom as the game goes on, is one of the most effective weapons in Hob's Barrows' arsenal of horror. Thomasina, a barrow-digger and proto-feminist trouser-wearer in a time when trousers were worn by men, is a practical and mostly cheerful woman. She approaches all the puzzles she has to solve in the robust, roll-your-sleeves up manner of an old-timey governess who doesn't care if you hate learning French verbs. The Thomasina of the future voiceover, however, sounds blank, drained and sad. It's a contrast that weighs more and more heavy as you slice into the horrible heart of Hob's Barrow, and it underscores how great it is to play the game in its fully voiced form.

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.

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