What is special about Tomasina Bateman. Does she wear special protective gear? At least at the start of the game, she does not have recurring nightmares. Perhaps she v... No, let's not go there, although I'm pretty sure she's not a police officer either. Whatever it is, it brings her to a village in the north of England that, on the surface, appears normal. [Otherwise Tomasina wouldn't be here. She is an outspoken modern Victorian woman who earns her living as an antiquities dealer and comes to the village of Burey after being summoned by an elusive man who is the driving force behind the excavation of a certain ossuary. And what secrets will she discover?

It's great stuff, but you have to recognize the art style to spot it. Low-resolution, blocky sprites may have worked in "Maniac Mansion," but that game was set largely indoors; in "Hob's Barrow's," there should be birds singing in a majestic wooded area and a desolate marsh as far as the eye can see, but individual chunks of pixels are rendered, making it difficult to cohere as a whole.

In the underground section late in the game, stone blocks and strange pink lighting bring the look together. If not muddy, the hand-drawn look certainly has charm.

It also has atmosphere. This is one of the game's strengths, its folk horror roots figuratively and literally digging up the earth around Bewlay and pulling out a monstrous tale that drags me to its deadly conclusion. Aside from the actions of one stray cat, there are few actual scares, such as jump scares or gore. It's a subtle kind of horror that makes you think long and hard about the implications of what the wonderful-voiced villagers have brought upon themselves.

The character of Tomasina contributes greatly to this. She is fond of saying "curse" and "nonsense" and refuses to heed any advice to stop archaeological analysis of what appears to be a very ordinary small burial mound. She does not back down when confronted with discussions of obvious paranormal phenomena or content-caution suicide. She is not afraid to knock on people's doors and ask for help. If the telephone had been invented, she might have been the kind of person who would answer the phone. Why is it that I wonder if there is really something in Tomasina that connects her to the events of this place that she has never been to?

We would explore the village with her, asking villagers to fetch items for us, giving us information or giving us items we needed. If she gave up and went back to London, it wouldn't be a game and we would lose the chance to solve the adventure game puzzles. She had to translate Latin texts, consult magazines for research, juggle apples, and pay attention to what the villagers would say to Tomasina.

The ending felt a bit rushed, but still managed to add an effective twist. One incident that occurred late in the game left me staring at the monitor with my mouth open.

But the moment could have been better: throughout the eight or nine hours it took to complete "Hob's Barrow," the game switches from low-resolution action to a particularly strange and gruesome one, such as an old man sitting on a bench or the crude graffiti of a supposed painter I enjoyed the more detailed shots of scenes that were either strange or significant. This trick is not used in key scenes where the power of storytelling should be at its peak.

The game also leaves one wondering. Even though the entire game is driven by the need to know what happens next, with the exception of a few characters, the lives of the characters are left inconclusive. The foreshadowing crammed into the first third of the game drives the desire to know how the apparently important yet ambiguous events are linked together.

Also, there is a goat that just disappears. An epilogue would have been nice.

But in terms of what's there, Hob's Barrow (open in new tab) is a great experience that is well-paced, has a great voice, and doesn't drag on. It's a gripping tale of one woman's determination to succeed and a conspiracy to twist her work in ways that don't quite stop her, but are hellish. There is something special about Tomasina Bateman that leads to a pretty special game.