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Hob's world is a mechanism: a beautiful, delicate thing of dials and pulleys and clamps and switches. It is intricate, and it is precise, and as you play through Hob the world you move through is never far from your thoughts. You descend beneath its copper and slate crust at times to slot ancient machinery together. When a gate will not rise, you pace backwards through the grass, following the trail of unlit diodes that will lead you back to a dormant battery that needs charging. You pull things, you twist things, you ram things home. The world is a lock that you are slowly picking, each tiny piece of hard-won progress sending new pins bouncing, or new tumblers turning. No wonder the sword you wield looks like a key.Oh yes, and there is something more. If the world is a lock, someone has jammed it with bubblegum.
It is hard to think of another game where the basic premise does so much of the work for you. Some games try to make you cry: Press X to hug wife. Oh no, now she's been killed by some baddies! Some games tempt you with the promise of loot, cascades of gold and silver and treasure chests that seem ready to spit jewels at you forever. Hob is not trying to get at your sense of injustice or your greed. It merely presents something beautiful and broken. Coax it back to life, it says. Fix it. It is hard to resist a set-up like this.
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