[Bober Bros] The Hole Steam Charts & Stats

This is quite legitimately the best written horror game I have ever played. I have no other words than this was absolutely phenomenal

Incredibly disturbing game, reminds me a lot of Mouthwashing but more bite sized.

I played The Hole by the Bober Brothers for a solid hour or so this evening, I didn't finish the game, I had to stop several times but let me tell you, it's one intense experience, at least it was for me. The game has a really unsettling vibe to it, with puzzles that keep you on edge, it's like nothing lets up, your mind's always racing. It has a heavy atmosphere, pressing down on you, puzzles? Oh boy, mess with your head and make you feel like you're going in circles or going insane. It's a dark story, with twists that shock you and it has this way of staying with you, I'm still having waking nightmares as I write this so, if you decide to play this game, just remember, it may keep you up a night or two because it really gets under your skin and you will remember it long afterwards, remember, I warned you and let me just say that this game is not for the faint of heart.

Viscerally dark, heavy and amazing experience. PS: During play fps sits at around 70-80 despite being run on RTX 3080, 32GB RAM and a Ryzen 7. Potato mode is appreciated but I feel like the game could just be optimizer better.

Very disturbing, short little horror game. Worth it if you're looking for something to kill a couple hours and leave an impression on you.

Well, that made me feel a bit sick. Successfully disturbing, though pretty bare-bones. The Hole feels deeply personal. I have mixed feelings about recommending it. I feel like I needed some sort of emotional anchor or a more involved plot to 'enjoy' this. I do think this game does what it sets out to do - disgust. The baby crying and that third drawing really made my stomach sink. Horrible. A bite-sized one hour stomach ache. But I don't find it at all interesting beyond the heavy *HEAVY* topic it attempts to tackle, and it's a bit confusing. But do play this game if you have an hour and want to be disgusted.

The game is an indie vodka-themed walking simulator disturbing story game. The environment is super cozy, the story is interesting but more than anything well told, the game looks great for what it is, the voice acting is good but more than anything cool and chill as hell and it has a LOT of really cool details and even spatial tricks like seamless floor transitions that are done crazy well and you would never notice. The game is super self aware and doesn't take itself too seriously even with the really disturbing story being told, it so much fun to just navigate the environment. It is very mature in that the events are shown respectfully but at the same time a little playfully and it even has a disclaimer at the end. Feels like another indie horror game except it's made good. It even has a potato mode for potato PCs which is awesome and I would have really appreciated 8 years ago. It's around 30-45 minutes long and has ok replayability due to how well its made.

Unsettling and does a good job at portraying certain subjects. The post ending text screen was a nice addition.

[h2]Mouthwashing and Its Consequences:[/h2] To start, I will say that [i]The Hole[/i] is ultimately coming at this triggering topic from a place of good faith and I don't think the devs are, like, bad people or anything. I think they genuinely wanted to tackle the topic of domestic violence and CSA from their uniquely interslavic POV, and I do appreciate their attempt to do so. However, a lot of this game and its treatment of those topics left a really bad taste in my mouth. A majority of [i]The Hole[/i] revolves around the daily routine of a man with an alcoholic use disorder, [spoiler]which is later linked to prior childhood trauma[/spoiler], interspersed with surreal sequences revolving around the domestic abuse his neighbor ([spoiler]or rather the protagonist himself?[/spoiler]) commits. This is a game with clear artistic ties to the growing trend of PSX-and-PS2-styled games directly confronting sensitive topics through surrealist imagery, like [i]Bad Parenting[/i] and, more importantly, [i]Mouthwashing[/i]. While I don't feel [i]Mouthwashing[/i] is an absolutely perfect game, I feel that its handling of topics such as sexual assault, toxic masculinity, and hierarchy is quite well done, and it will thus be held as the primary comparison point for how this game handles similar issues. Now [i]The Hole[/i] demonstrates clear reverence for [i]Mouthwashing[/i] with its meat-covered hallways and Danielewskian floorplan fuckery, but I do not feel that BOBER BROS have the same deft hands or originality when examining these sensitive issues that their predecessors had. The very first impression the player gets is a very corny achievement unlock following the trigger warning slide as you boot up the game. Let it be known that I'm not saying there shouldn't be any humor at all, [i]Mouthwashing[/i] had it in spades and it was fine there, but there should be a distinct line between humor and the sensitive subject matter, but here, there is instead immediate interaction between the two before the player even starts the game. After that though, the game starts mostly okay as the player goes about the protagonist's daily routine of excessive alcohol consumption, interrupted by the variety of noises which ring from the neighbor's side of the shared wall, leading to verbal spats between the neighbor and protagonist. As the in-game days wear on though, the routine grows surreal and the noises heard from the neighbor's home grow evermore concerning. Eventually, the protagonist begins interacting with the neighbor's daughter, leading to further dark insinuations and a horrific revelation regarding CSA. The way I have described this plot makes it sound rather barebones, and that's because it kind of is? Ultimately this is where my main issue lies: there really isn't anything to the plot other than the sensitive topics. Little effort is actually taken to develop the plot past a device to present the player with said topics. The attempt at mundanity through routine is immediately taken to an absurd extreme as well, so there is no real emotional anchor either, unlike [i]Mouthwashing[/i], which used mundanity in a way that properly anchored and developed the characters in a way that felt way more relatable and resonant. That quite literally leaves only the sensitive topics for the player, and I just don't feel they're handled well. While I admittedly don't have the full cultural context this story was formed in, I find the use of CSA and domestic violence more akin to attempts at shock value rather than any proper examination of the issues; little is said about the generational trauma, the effect of CSA, the role masculinity plays in abuse, nothing. They are presented without a core thesis other than "do you see how FUCKED UP this is?", further supported by further corny achievement unlocks, ultimately ending with a saccharine text crawl that leaves a lot to be desired. There isn't any real attempt at saying something significant about the themes nor is there anything especially original about the way it presents them either (you can only see so many meat walls and looping PT hallways before it gets really old). The story handles these themes with little depth and sensitivity and I just feel very, very disappointed. While I do wish these devs well, I'd advise they don't explore these heavy themes again without some serious reflection on their writing ability.

I smashed the mouse button for (i lost track of time) minutes to get the fart achievement. (Restart the game a couple of times if there are bugs getting them.) After playing through this gruesome fever dream, I needed some time to process... But heating up probably soggy cereal in the microwave is vile.