History VideoGame / TheExcavationOfHobsBarrow

* ChekhovsBoomerang: True to their purpose as tools, Thomasina's knife, towel, and chisel are quite useful in solving several puzzles throughout the game.

Thomasina Bateman is a Londonian antiquarian with an interest in excavating tumuli and similar landmarks across the English countryside. One day, she receives a letter from a man named Leonard Shoulder, a local resident from a little village named Bewlay way out on the moors, telling her of a mysterious barrow located in his very own home town -- a place shrouded in dark mysteries.

Thomasina journeys to Bewlay, only to find that Mr. Shoulder, despite his promises to join up with her upon her arrival, never shows up at their appointed meeting spot and is nowhere to be found. Undeterred, Thomasina decides to continue her work, unabated by the scepticism from the local habitants of the village, who find this strange woman scholar from the city who wears trousers to be a most unorthodox sight indeed, and their foreboding hushed tales about what happened last time someone dared to disturb Hob's Barrow...

** [[spoiler: Goats seem to be prevalent, since a puzzle in the underground ruins requires six statues of animal heads to be turned to face "the Seventh [[Main/{{OurArchonsAreDifferent}} Archontic]]", a goat's head. Also, a pitch black goat serves as the guardian of the ruins, and must be dealt with before the player can continue further.]]

* DaddysGirl: Thomasina is closest to her father since he was the one that inspired her to take up a career in archaeology when she was a young woman. Her relationship with her mother, in contrast, is quite cold and distant. [[spoiler:Her devotion to her father is also what leads to her downfall at the end of the game.]]

* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:It is heavily implied that Abraxas Rex in his true form is this. Thomasina certainly notices that she cannot really describe her own encounter with him up-close.]]
-->[[spoiler:''I can still scarcely believe what I saw looming over me in that stygian chamber. How does one even attempt describe the indescribable? The vision before me defied all logical explanation. All my efforts to do so have fallen on deaf ears, merely providing a chance to be mocked, pitied and dismissed as mentally unsound. I dare not commit that unfathomable glimpse to paper. But it was REAL, mother. HE is real. Not an imaginary terror... but a demon... a GOD brought to life.'']]

* FantasyForbiddingFather: Thomasina's father was a staunch believer in rationalism, and he therefore insisted on teaching her that everything had a scientific explanation and reject any notions of the existence of the supernatural as superstition and "hogwash". It is slightly played with, in that it is clear that he believed that discovering the truth through the scientific method could just as exciting and wondrous as any fairytale, and that it was this lesson he really wanted to impart upon his daughter. [[spoiler:It is quite a shock to her to learn that her father was looking into magic and was even serious about it during his own visit to Bewlay.]]

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: Downplayed. The story has been confirmed by both subtle details in-game and WordOfGod to take place at some point in the latter end of the Victorian Era, but no specific year or even decade is ever mentioned directly within the story itself.

* EvilIsPetty: [[spoiler:Abraxas Rex "thanks" Thomasina for freeing him by possessing her and forcing her to kill her father under his control, in what is heavily implied to be revenge for imprisoning him in the first place.]]

* FunWithHomophones: [[spoiler:The Big Bad is a pagan deity named Abraxas Rex, a deity from real-world Gnostic religion. The etymology of his name (also spelled Abra''sax'') is unknown, although some have been proposed. The name of the creature that lives in the barrow, a hobgoblin, is given as ''Sax''not, the name of a Saxon god from the real world. In-universe, Saxnot seems to be some sort of servant of the barrow.]]

* AllForNothing: The earlier excavation of Hob's Barrow [[spoiler: by Thomasina's father, where he sealed Abraxas Rex in the barrow with a binding spell. By the end of the game, Thomasina has undone her father's spell and let Abraxas Rex out again, in a failed attempt to revive her father from the coma he fell into after performing the original spell. For some extra salt in the wound, Abraxas Rex then possess Thomasina and forces her to kill her father out of revenge for sealing him in.]]

* BloodMagic: [[spoiler:Some 25 years ago, Thomasina's own father led an expedition to the same Hob's Barrow, with disastrous consequences for all involved. Before he left, he trapped Abraxas deep in its chamber with a binding spell and his own blood. The bad guys intend to resurrect their deity by having Thomasina break the spell with her blood.]]

* CampbellCountry: The game utilizes the foggy, sparsely populated English moors, creepy folklore, and the distrust of the local community towards an outsider from the city to create a generally eerie, oppressive, and paranoid atmosphere. [[spoiler:England's older history is eventually referenced when Thomasina explores the innards of the Temple underneath the titular barrow, which seems to be overtly Roman in its origins.]]

* DramaticIrony: The player explicitly leaves Thomasina's point of view just once, when [[spoiler:Arthur Tillett tries telling her that he saw Mr. Shoulder and Lord Panswyck plotting against her in the woods]], which triggers a flashback from [[spoiler:Arthur]]'s point of view. However; [[spoiler:Arthur]] gets interrupted by [[spoiler:the sudden arrival of Lord Panswyck]] before he can actually tell her what he witnessed, meaning that while the player gets see what he was trying to warn her about, Thomasina herself remains ignorant of it.

* GruesomeGoat: [[spoiler:The guardian of the underground ruins is a goat black as pitch with purple eyes. After Thomasina deals with him by solving a puzzle, the animal disappears in wisps of black smoke.]]

* InUniverseCatharsis: The long-suffering servant, Ms. Thompkins, has had to work under Lord Panswyck's cruel housekeeper, Ms. Fenwyck, for years. When she, thanks to some help from Thomasina, is reunited with her boyfriend, Eddie, and the couple can put their plans to run away together into action, Ms. Thompkins immediately takes revenge by casually picking Ms. Fenwyck's beloved Hippeastrum flowers right in front of her face. When Ms. Fenwyck protests, Ms. Thompkins proceeds to gleefully call her an "old sow" as she tells her to stick her complaints up where the sun don't shine, before she and Eddie happily walk away together.

* SolarAndLunar: A stone carving of a moon is seen hanging on a character's cottage and in front of another's manor. [[spoiler:Lunar motifs also appear in the underground ruins beneath Hob's Barrow, as part of a puzzle.]]

* ChurchLady: Thomasina meets Mrs. de Plancy, a nice church lady that bakes sweets and gives the earnings to the local church's upkeep. She is also friends with the church's vicar.

* DaddysGirl: Thomasina is closest to her father, since he was the one that inspired her to take up a career in archaeology when she was a young woman. Her relationship with her mother, in contrast, is quite cold and distant. [[spoiler:Her devotion to her father is also what leads to her downfall at the end of the game.]]

* FunWithHomophones: [[spoiler:The Big Bad is a pagan deity named Abraxas Rex, a deity from real world Gnostic religion. The etymology of his name (also spelled Abra''sax'') is unknown, although some have been proposed. The name of the creature that lives in the barrow, a hobgoblin, is given as ''Sax''not, the name of a Saxon god from the real world. In-universe, Saxnot seems to be some sort of servant of the barrow.]]

* InUniverseCatharsis: The long suffering servant, Ms. Thompkins, has had to work under Lord Panswyck's cruel housekeeper, Ms. Fenwyck, for years. When she, thanks to some help from Thomasina, is reunited with her boyfriend, Eddie, and the couple can put their plans to run away together into action, Ms. Thompkins immediately takes revenge by casually picking Ms. Fenwyck's beloved Hippeastrum flowers right in front of her face. When Ms. Fenwyck protests, Ms. Thompkins proceeds to gleefully call her an "old sow" as she tells her to stick her complaints up where the sun don't shine, before she and Eddie happily walk away together.

* TownWithADarkSecret: Idyllic Bewlay, deep in the British moors, houses a local landmark known as Hob's Barrow, which is surrounded in mystery and considered by the locals to be a cursed place.
* UntrustingCommunity: Some of the residents treat Thomasina with indifference, even disdain, since she is a foreigner that has come to disturb the local Hob's Barrow -- against the residents' wishes.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_excavation_of_hobs_barrow.jpg]]

* GruesomeGoat: [[spoiler:The guardian of the underground ruins is a goat black as pitch. After Thomasina deals with him by solving a puzzle, the animal disappears in wisps of black smoke.]]

* AllForNothing: The earlier excavation of Hob's Barrow [[spoiler: by Thomasina's father, where he sealed Abraxas Rex in the barrow with a binding spell. By the end of the game, Thomasina has undone her father's spell and let Abraxas Rex out again, in a failed attempt to revive her father from the coma he fell into after performing the original spell.]]

* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Played with. Upon finding out that James, the local artist, is also [[spoiler:the enigmatic Lord Panswyck]], Thomasina begins saying the trope name, but William finishes the sentence for her.

* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:It is heavily implied that Abraxas Rex in hus true form is this. Thomasina certainly notices that she cannot really describe her own encounter with him up-close.]]

* MysteriousPurple: Purple is the colour of Thomasina's dreams and strange visions that come up at certain points of the game. [[spoiler:Also the ambient colour of the ruins beneath Hob's Barrow and the signature colour of the Big Bad.]]

* MysteriousPurple: This is the colour of Thomasina's dreams and strange visions that come up at certain points of the game. [[spoiler:Also the ambient colour of the ruins beneath Hob's Barrow, and the signature colour of the Big Bad.]]

''The Excavation of Hob's Barrow'' is a FolkHorror [[PointAndClickGame Point-and-Click]] AdventureGame set in UsefulNotes/VictorianBritain, and developed by Cloak and Dagger Games and published by [[Creator/{{WadjetEyeGames}} Wadjet Eye Games]], released for the PC in September 2022, with a UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch port coming in January 2023. The developers have cited the works of Creator/MontagueRhodesJames and Creator/HPLovecraft as influences for the work's tone and atmosphere.