I successfully did what I planned yesterday — for two nights in a row, even. Last night I spent some time with Smashing the Battle on Nintendo Switch, which I'll write a bit more about once I've spent some more time with it, and tonight I have seemingly spent nearly six hours playing The Excavation of Hob's Barrow, a point-and-click adventure by Cloak & Dagger Games, published by modern adventure game specialists Wadjet Eye Games.
It always does my soul good to see how not-dead the point-and-click adventure genre has been for quite some time now, because there was definitely a period in the mid 2000s and early 2010s where it felt like there weren't any being made. 3D tech was getting better and everything was suddenly all about cinematic action games — something that certainly hasn't gone away in more recent years — but, looking back, it's clear that adventure games never really went anywhere. And these days, I'd say they're thriving more than they ever have done, even in their supposed golden age. Because not only can we enjoy the established classics from that golden age, there's a host of new ones seemingly being made all the time.
I'll write more specifics about The Excavation of Hob's Barrow when I've fully completed it — I've pressed pause on it for this evening as it's a quarter to one and I should probably sleep. Suffice to say for now that it's very good, though.
In The Excavation of Hob's Barrow, you take on the role of Thomasina Bateman, an antiquarian who has made it her mission to document the various ancient burial mounds scattered around the English countryside. We join the story as she arrives in a remote Northern village, supposedly the home of the titular Hob's Barrow, but she's immediately confronted with mysteries as her contact is nowhere to be seen and no-one seems to want to talk about Hob's Barrow.
That's all I'll say on the plot for now. The interface uses a pretty standard two-button system, with left-clicking "doing" things and right-clicking "looking" at things, but there's plenty of thinking required. Thus far there has been no real "moon logic" to speak of, just a sequence of tasks to complete that provide a sense of relative freedom without overwhelming you with possibilities. In fact, the game is quite cleverly designed in that the "freedom" you feel is not really present at all; there's quite a fixed sequence of things to do with a chain reaction of dependencies, but the fact you discover the beginnings of all these various threads before you start figuring out which order you need to solve them in is what makes this game really work.
It's beautifully presented in low-res pixel art combined with modern graphical techniques and greater colour depth, which gives it a wonderfully distinctive aesthetic. The voice acting is very good, too, seemingly making use of native Northerners in many cases.
I'm intrigued to see where it goes, but not quite enough to pull an all-nighter on it. After all, GOG Galaxy says I've already spent 5 hours and 28 minutes on it this evening and I've only completed two of the in-game "days". I don't know how many there are in total, but it does feel as if the third one is going to be somewhat climactic, so I estimate I'm maybe a little over halfway to two-thirds through? We shall see, I guess.
Anyway, if you're jonesing for a modern point-and-click adventure, I can definitely recommend this one. It's kept me pretty enraptured for the whole evening and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all concludes.
For now, though, sleep. Sleep!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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