Adventure Gamers - Forums

OK I’m done with the second section, which I enjoyed.

Firstly, I really like the graphics. I’m not particularly for or against pixels nowadays but the scenes here are well composed and drawn and capture the buildings and location well. Although there are a fair few “fade to black” moments, there is some nice scenery animation in many places.

We’re starting to get at a serious bit of story now and i’m intrigued to see how things work out here.

Character wise, I was worried from the first section that all the villagers might merge into one unfriendly northerner(!) but this section shows that not to be the case. We’ve got some distinct personalities, some likeable, some less so, but almost entirely distinctive and well voice acted too.

One thing I would say, I remember a number of years ago at AdventureX John Ingold of Inkle announcing that their next game would be about an archaeologist and showing a couple of early screens of Heaven’s Vault. Inkle for me have been consistently impressive and I remember thinking, will a game about an archaeologist (without the ‘Indiana Jones’ stuff) really be interesting or fun? Hob’s Barrow is the second game that shows me it can.

Kind of quiet in here. Where is everybody? LadyKestrel, Chrissie, Doom, walas?
Playing Expiscor and digging it. I’ll post more when I’ve finished it. Tomorrow.

PS: The children’s voices don’t bother me. Jane’s voice is not bad at all imo.

Sorry, I haven’t been able to play lately. I’ll try to catch up this weekend.

Due to my best laid plans that went awry, I just started the game last night and have had a nice conversation with the innkeeper and not-so-nice ones with others.  I like the main character very much and am impressed by the voice acting.  I hope to get caught up tonight.

I finished it, just have to collect my thoughts) All in all, it was a nice chapter, maybe not as a good as the second one, but still very enjoyable.

Well, I finally finished chapter 2!

As I expected from Cloak and Dagger games, I love the writing and I think Thomasina is a great character. Bewley gives me the creeps: those moors, the fog at night, I can feel the horror coming in crescendo…

About my choices, I fortunately answered correctly Shapeskeare quotes at my first try, I didn’t ask the old lady about Father Roache’s illness and I decided to make amends with Tillett and drink with him, mainly to get more information.

One think I thought after Tillett disappearence at the toilets was that he was actually the cat and people in Bewley could shapeshift into animals. I thought I was right when looking for Jane through the hole and finding another animal. But no, because at night both the cat and Tillet were at the Inn…

After one thing Thomasina wrote, I am afraid this adventure is not going to end well for her… Wasn’t she too pale at the beginning?

I am really eager to continue playing and see how things go, so I will probably start playing “Expiscor” tonight…

Oh, I forgot!

Although I know that makes the game setting more realistic, it’s not easier for me sometimes to undertand that local English, but I learnt some curious new words such as “lass” and “hogwash”...

My thoughts on Expiscor: another well-written chapter with a focus on several new characters. I think the developer did great introducing more characters that become part of the main plot while also keeping an eye on the old cast and adding more depth to them — I’m talking about Tillett and the old lady in particular, her storyline was most touching.

I have to admit though that Mr. Shoulders and Lord Panswyck felt fishy right from the start, I had no doubt everything they told me was a lie. If it was Shadow of the Comet, they would’ve probably murdered Thomasina the moment they were left alone. But I followed my usual strategy and talked nicely to both of them and even spent some romantic moments with Panswyck — the game treacherously assured us that we just wasted our time. I think those were some lost opportunities that could’ve been treated more gently.

Loved the little subquest with the mute girl and her broken violin, it fit really well with the rest of the game, and gathering ingredients for a herbalist was nice for a change (if a bit silly, with all the earthworm in an apple and juggling). I didn’t, however, like the milkman storyline much, it just felt out of place. Also I thought they gave a lousy explanation to why he was ritualistically tied to the cross, with all those brunches sticking out like in a The Wicker Man horror, and then he just casually, even comically returned to his bride. What?

I’m also officially not a fan of flashbacks. Too many, too little to do, no fun. I’d rather did another fetch quest for some locals or investigated the Panswyck mansion more — that one was a really beautiful location, wish we were let inside or searched the ruins. The ending was a bit… spoilerish? I mean, there’s a whole chapter ahead, and yet they simply reveal all intentions and motivations of the baddies to us, like it’s no big deal. Not the “shocking truth” I expected. The final song was so strange and random Waiting for the outcome, time to excavate this freaking barrow.

Not sure if I’m overthinking this, but I just booted the game up to start the next section and I happened to spend a little while just looking at the title screen.

At first I was thinking, oh she’s got a different expression in the reflection than she does in the carriage, and then I thought, hang on, is that even the same girl? There’s something about the noses…

To be honest, I do have a bit of a face blindness thing, so not sure if I’m completely imagining things here, but now i’m wondering if this plays into the story at all?!

The nose is different but I think it’s the same girl. Thomasina seems calm and collected, her reflection looks upset and scared.