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Incantamentum (by Cloak and Dagger games) is now The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow
For now I’m more concerned by how much play time and what sort of puzzles this one delivers (or not
).
Interestingly, the reviewer here on AG (The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow Review) says they took about 20 hours to complete the game, while most other reviews I’ve seen indicate about 4-6 hours of gameplay. Quite the disparity.
yeah I found that odd too, Dave Gilbert said it would take about 6 to 8 hours
Maybe replaying for achievements or decissions affecting the story?
Currently translating Strangeland into Spanish. Wish me luck, or send me money to my Paypal haha
Maybe replaying for achievements or decissions affecting the story?
Would have been my assumption as well, but
Throughout my 20-hour play-through
“a play-through” is pretty clear to me? I mean, I’d assume a reviewer takes longer and explores alternatives etc., but surely you’d at the end then still give an approximation of the pure play time because everything else is useless to players ...
But this is the same reviewer that didn’t notice game breaking bugs in Born Punk and didn’t think there was anything to say about the logic of some Crowns and Pawns puzzles so I guess he’s just got to have one big mystery in his reviews ^^
Got it myself. Played through it. Never, ever does anyone take 20 hours to see the end of this game. If you do absolute everything, explore every option, sit pointlessly on a certain bench for ... two hours ... and play through the entire game twice or thrice. Then maybe you manage something like 15 hours.
... obviously adventure game playtimes or playtimes in general are tough to be entirely accurate with, but for a review to say they took 20h, uh. That’s one heck of a miss. 10h would have been a stretch. Luckily most (player) reviews are more correct with giving around 6h, but honestly, if you are a bit impatient, and any sort of p&c player, I wouldn’t be surprised if you do it in 4h or so.
Otherwise ... well, if you don’t like negative words about a well-received game, stop reading here - but I’ll put it all in spoilers anyway, just to be doubly sure, and you can enjoy the game unsullied by my peasant opinions.
First of all, the puzzles, in their gameplay aspect ...
I almost said they are a joke, but that’d mean they are funny, so more accurately, they are disappointing. There’s not a single one that feels good, that feels like any sort of achievement to solve; not even anything that feels kinda fresh or different. There’s a few tools you use over and over again (try the trowel/chisel/knife ...), and the rest is basically fetching stuff.
The “end boss” dungeon gets as difficult as “have this text with words like MOON” and then walk through a door with a MOON symbol.
Amazing stuff. Not.
Obviously this is also why the game is pretty short. There’s other p&c that don’t do much more narratively, but that have tougher puzzles, and, well, yeah, then you take longer to play through them. I’m not saying that’s necessarily “correct”, heck, I don’t want to be stuck on a puzzle for hours, but this game could have borderline been a walking simulator. Why bother with gameplay when it’s at this level ...
... now, the puzzles narratively. Several times I felt the classic-p&c logic didn’t fit the narrative very well at all. For example, when our heroine hands in a seemingly quite personal item at her hotel to buy drinks. In other instances, that you are forced to puzzle - aka run errants - for people for no good reason at all seems to be some sort of gameplay concession rather than any narrative necessity (it’s somewhat lampshaded which is never an excuse). I need milk for that maid, but to get milk I need a poultice for that old guy, but for that poultice I need some flowers, and for those flowers I need ... and it’s all just running from A to B and picking up stuff and handing it in. Of course you need to think about one or two things occasionally. But, phew. Not a very convincing integration on balance.
Some early puzzles I also found borderline misleading; twice the game references following a sound but in neither case did I notice any. Also, in neither case was it any sort of necessary. But still weird for characters to mention this.
Another thing that I found disappointing - especially after Call of the Sea, which did a much better job at this - was that the “you are following a previous expedition” wasn’t well integrated either. A bit here or there but otherwise apparently somebody went around and cleared everything up so you can do the puzzles again (not talking about closing the burrow, that’s obviously fine); very nice of them ... yeah, sure, it’s supernatural-dungeon-cleanup forces, I get it. ^^
Now, narratively, it’s okay. I don’t agree that the flash backs are any sort of genius; they are just cliché “look how nice the dad is now please care about the guy” moments. The heroine’s letter - if you are completely clueless about the direction the story is going to take - are okay, but, yeah, obviously sorta spoiler Bad Stuff(tm).
The game plays its setting completely straight, to the point where it just feels cliché. It’s a village in the moors with ... and it’s rainy! And now the train doesn’t run anymore so you are stuck! And the people are all sorta warning you but not really since that’d “solve” the story within five minutes and it’s supposed to be mysterios! Ooooh, spooky cat. Spoooky goat! Spoooky kid playing music! Wooo! Spooooky! Spooooooky!
... okay, people will probably rightly say that that sort of sarcasm isn’t exactly better, but you get the idea, hopefully If you got any level of experience with these types of stories, literally nothing about it will surprise you, and again, there’s nothing that at least feels a little bit fresh or different or anything.
The ending also plays everything completely straight. You see it from miles coming but this being a p&c there’s nothing you can do. Never mind that the game tells you - and the heroine - basically on the first day whom not to trust, yeah, doesn’t matter, march to the end, enjoy, apparently there’s some sort of deeper meaning there? Sure.
I at least hoped for some sort of twist to it. But, naw.
Art is mostly great. A real dose of nostalgic goodness. Voice acting is fine, though the younger character don’t exactly sound like real kids. But whatever, don’t care. There’s music but I can’t say I found that memorable.
If that all sounds less than enthused then it’s because I’m not. I get why people compare it to Blackwell; maybe Kathy Rain too, but it’s in my opinion nowhere as good as either (on the whole). It’s still okay, I didn’t hate it. But, eh, as a p&c it sorta fails, and as a story it doesn’t do enough. So, yeah. That’s my opinion on something that’s apparently exceptionally written and whatnot all else. But other people generally like it better so make of that what you will. ^^
This is nice to hear from dave gilbert’s twitter.
I don’t tweetbrag often (well not too often) but I am FLOORED by the sales/reception of Hob’s Barrow. It has sold more copies in five days than most of our catalog manages in a month. Thank you so much, everyone. And congrats again to
@cloakanddaggerg
and everyone involved!
I bought it yesterday, to support Cloak and Dagger games. It was about time people know about them.
Currently translating Strangeland into Spanish. Wish me luck, or send me money to my Paypal haha
I’m a complete fan of the developers & just thought after downloading I would play a few minutes but got so grabbed by the story I just kept going until the end. Excellent! 
N.B. It took me 8.5 hours but you can fast click through dialogue so I guess you could get up to 10 hours. There are some different choices to make so I would guess that the reviewer may have just played through twice? .....or just backtracked a lot.
I just finished the prologue and man, it has already sunk its cat claws into me deep! Can’t wait to continue tomorrow. That close up cinematic pixel art animation they use in some of the cut-scenes is really something! What a creepy spooky haunting atmospheric game so far. Top notch all around! Hope it keeps up like this.
Player, purveyor, and propagator of smart toys and games for all ages.
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Just finished this yesterday. Taking my sweet time, I reckon it’s a 6 hour game, maybe a smidge more. I look at everything, talk to everyone, and explore a lot so as not to miss anything.
Man, what a conundrum this game is! Is it possible for a game to get five stars based on aesthetics and story alone, regardless of gameplay? The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow makes a good case for it.
What I liked:
- The atmosphere and sense of place are incredible. The world you explore is limited, giving it a real homey feel, allowing the player to become acquainted and intimate with the location and its inhabitants. I usually *don’t* like adventure games that stay primarily in one place (see: Freddy Pharkas), but Hob’s Barrow couldn’t be what it is any other way.
- Speaking of inhabitants. The depth of characterization for the NPC’s is excellent. This is the sum of a number of parts.
A: The voice acting is some of the best I’ve heard in a video game, period.
B: Great voice acting is impossible unless there is a great script, and the script here is *TOP NOTCH*, and I can’t emphasize enough just how *top* it is. It’s not *fancy*, it’s not purple or flowery, it’s simply believable and entertaining.
C: Lots of the inhabitants of Bewlay (the town in which the game takes place) are, from a gameplay perspective, only there to supply the player with small impediments—usually fetch quests. However, before and after any of these NPC’s actually provide you with a fetch quest, they have usually already been seen or spoken of around the town. For example, there is a woman in the marketplace from whom you must procure a certain object—in what is probably the best puzzle in the game. Before she shows up on market day, though, you will already have seen her having a tiff with her husband in the inn, and then setting up her stall earlier in the day. After you complete her quest, you’ll see her again later, somewhere else. Likewise, even though it’s not important to the story, you will often be able to deduce who lives where in the town, why a certain shop is always closed, and why there is a light on in the window of that shop every night. This has *nothing* to do with any gameplay situations; it’s just there to make Bewlay feel real to the player.
D: The protagonist, Thomasina, is likeable. Smart, but fallible (hoo boy). Confident, but prone to flattery. Level headed, but maybe likes to drink a little too much. She’s believable.
- The story. It’s a true horror story, having much more in common with classic horror-via-dread movies like Suspiria than jump-scare or gross out media. Unlike others here, I sensed certain twists and elements of the plot, but never suspected it would end quite like it did. I feel like the developers brought everything full circle perfectly. I was a little stunned by where things end up.
- The graphics. Sublime. The close-up pixel-art-as-FMV cutscenes look great, and their griminess fits the vibe being served here perfectly. Along with games like Virtua Verse and Shardlight, I believe that Hob’s Barrow makes a strong case for pixel art being the best graphical option, not simply a ‘nostalgia option’ for certain types of games.
- Speaking of Shardlight, Hob’s Barrow reminds me of a different Francisco Gonzalez (maker of Shardlight) game, A Golden Wake. It’s not really concerned with challenging the player *much*, so much as it is taking them places and telling a compelling story. I really enjoyed A Golden Wake, and it should be obvious by now that I really enjoyed Hob’s Barrow. The difference between the two games, from a gameplay perspective, is that I never felt like A Golden Wake was trying to be anything but a narrative adventure game; whereas Hob’s Barrow feels like it is trying to be a true, if modernized, Sierra/Lucas Arts style game. This leads me to…
What I didn’t like about the game:
- The puzzles. They aren’t really puzzles, so much as impediments, and very minor impediments at that. Only once or twice did I have to scratch my head, and one of those times was because I didn’t realize that there was more than one loose part of a wall.
The aforementioned Sierra/Lucasarts games sometimes made the player feel stupid for not being able to solve the puzzles. Hob’s Barrow, and many other modern adventure games, make me feel stupid by essentially playing what’s little more, and sometimes a lot less, than a Pajama Sam game in grown up clothes. We’re really just picking up an object from point A and transferring it to a painfully obvious point B, over and over again. I believe that if you are telling an intelligent adult story, which Hob’s Barrow definitely is, please treat your players like intelligent adults. To be fair, Hob’s Barrow is slightly better than many other modern games in this respect, but that’s very faint praise for HB, and more like darnation of its many contemporaries.
Now, I recently played Virtua Verse (fantastic, highly recommended), and that game had an Easy and Challenging option. I’d love to see this implemented in more games, but at the same time, I know that’s a lot of work for the dev team.
That’s one big ‘don’t like’, but rest assured that the rest of The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow is so darn good, so darn top-of-the-all-time-class, that I highly recommend it anyway. Just be aware that the only plucky thing about this game is Thomasina, your protagonist. The rest of it is dark, dank, dismal, dreary, and yet somehow also one of the most beautiful games out there.
Player, purveyor, and propagator of smart toys and games for all ages.
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Awesome review, Blubba! I can’t wait now to play Hob’s. Your description reminds me of Shadow of the Comet where they also fit a lot of events into just one isolated location. Although I was hoping for a bigger game with about 10 hours of playtime, 6 hours is a bit short for a community playthrough. And I see what you mean when speaking about puzzles, their previous game Sumatra was also on the easy side, and yet it really felt like a lost Sierra game.
PC means personal computer
Thanks, Doom.
It would actually make a very good CPT, I think. There’s a lot to talk about. It’s a very evocative game, from a gameplay and story perspective.
Also, it is divided up into 4 (if I recall) hefty chapters, so it would be very easy to set a structure for a CPT.
Player, purveyor, and propagator of smart toys and games for all ages.
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That sounds great. Although the problem with cpts is that they usually last for weeks, and playing a 1-1.5 hour chapter per week isn’t very encouraging. Hob’s Barrow probably needs a more balanced approach in case it wins.
PC means personal computer
I had to withdraw my vote for obvious reasons. I will still play the game if it wins. You need to dig up a few more participants. Not having played it, I can’t tell whether it would work, but if each chapter took two weeks, I think that would be fine for a lot of people. Plus it would give you the 6-to-8 week CPT you seem to be looking for.
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
“Dig up a few more participants”—very nice.
I peeked into the CPT voting thread to see what you meant by having to withdraw for obvious reasons. I really don’t think anyone in their right mind would be vindictive enough to think that you were taking the moral high-ground on abandonware in order to help secure a CPT for the game of your choice. That level of cunning scheming behavior is usually reserved for seditious arch-villains, such as the evil zombie ghost voodoo pirate captain LeChuck, and the eviler crazier brother in Myst, or all those hoity-toity Templar revivalists in Broken Sword.
Player, purveyor, and propagator of smart toys and games for all ages.
Facebook.com/weplayfaves
IG @weplayfaves
Thanks, Doom. It would actually make a very good CPT, I think. There’s a lot to talk about. It’s a very evocative game, from a gameplay and story perspective.
Also, it is divided up into 4 (if I recall) hefty chapters, so it would be very easy to set a structure for a CPT.
I completely agree BB with your appraisal of the game!
...... I was hoping for a bigger game with about 10 hours of playtime, 6 hours is a bit short…....
My playthrough lasted about 8.5 hours but I could have taken longer.
That sounds great. Although the problem with cpts is that they usually last for weeks, and playing a 1-1.5 hour chapter per week isn’t very encouraging. Hob’s Barrow probably needs a more balanced approach in case it wins.
I had to withdraw my vote for obvious reasons. I will still play the game if it wins. You need to dig up a few more participants. Not having played it, I can’t tell whether it would work, but if each chapter took two weeks, I think that would be fine for a lot of people. Plus it would give you the 6-to-8 week CPT you seem to be looking for.
Your reason for withdrawing your vote, Tim, is not obvious to me?
My interpretation of Doom’s comment was that a 1 - 1.5 hour chapter per week would be too long?.... but I might have misunderstood ..... only Doom can clarify that.
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