The rural idyll has a strange pull on us. Picture a green and pleasant land: white sheep dot rolling hills like puffs from a steam train. Children with flowers in their hair dance round coloured maypoles. All the while, in a white marquee, where bunting flaps in the breeze, oversized ribbons are being awarded for best sponge cake. Dig deeper however and we discover old hatreds buried beneath the pastures and furrowed ground.
There is growing nostalgia for the quaint charm of pastoral life, but alongside this a subgenre of horror that has seen a revival matched only by the restless undead. This is folk horror, with its haunting landscapes and eerie atmosphere. It s a somewhat shapeless category that evaporates as soon as you try to pin it down. But one game is trying to capture it.