If Wadjet Eye Games publishes something, I tend to pay at least some attention. I didn’t like every game they’ve ever published and not every game they’ve ever made, but they do tend to pick the titles that have something interesting about them among many a project made on Adventure Game Studio. When The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow got announced, I was curious as to what it might be. Curiosity only increased during the first hour and I was hoping the game will remain as interesting throughout. It didn’t.
The concept for The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is pretty simple, but there’s nothing bad about its simplicity. It’s a story about a young antiquarian/archaeologist being invited to a remote English village to dig and explore a supposedly famous (at least locally) barrow. Except, when she arrives, the town is far from friendly, there’s no one to meet her and everyone says that they’ve never heard of the place. It’s nothing novel and the story does go the obvious and predictable path, but for the first hour there are enough bold storytelling decisions and atmosphere to keep your interest piqued. The game got me on the first unexpected jump cut transition and unorthodox choice of music, somewhat reminiscent of John Carpenter, but with a more folk English twist. And for a while I was hooked.
Unfortunately, and I don’t know if this was a choice made out of want or need, but despite being such a story and atmosphere driven game, mechanically it rather quickly devolves into a rather generic puzzle solving type adventure. As in – you do solve problems, rather than abstract puzzles (well, until the final part anyway), but you do that in the most obtuse, stupid “find some item to use elsewhere” way that never fits the character or the mood. So instead of you consciously solving a problem, you might need to wonder around and do unrelated things in unintuitive and narratively conflicting ways until the solution to your initial problem will manifest itself.
Sadly, the predictability and uninspired nature of the story also becomes more notable, especially by the end. Where you feel that this whole story would’ve worked wonderfully as a horror story that you read from the perspective of the main character. But feels incredibly stupid when you have to play it out interactively, because as a player you have a completely outside perspective and you’re never given enough reason to truly “get in the shoes” of the character, or be blinded to some things the same way she might be. So what would read as a tense and terror inducing event, plays out as something really dumb.
But overall, The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow isn’t bad. It has a cool sense of style, the pacing is relatively good and the atmosphere it builds at the start is fantastic. It’s just that, in the end it feels like a really bland game and a mostly wasted opportunity. I got reminded of how wonderful The Last Door is in comparison, despite it being a far simpler and more minimalist title, but with a similar atmosphere. You probably won’t regret playing The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, but there’s also a high chance you won’t remember it soon after completing it.