Overview: 5.0/5.0
What’s better than a 1930s Agatha-Christie-esque whodunit on a boat? One where you’re the murderer, of course! This game is one that’s best played by going in blind, but if you must be convinced, read on.
Developer: inkle Ltd
Genre: Adventure, (Reverse?) Whodunit
Release Date: June 2, 2021
Platform: Nintendo Switch, PC, iOS
Price: $14.99
The protagonist is instantly lovable, even though the game opens with her shoving her husband off a boat. The cartoon art in the game is beautiful and thematic, mixed with comic book transitions and dialogue bubbles. The ship is the perfect whodunit setting - you don’t see much of it, but you don’t really need to. Instead, the focus is on the art of each character. The dialogue is quick, spunky, and easily digested in quick spurts of conversation, perfect for this type of game. To top it all off, the entire narrative is underscored by a swell soundtrack.
Overboard! is a short game that’s meant to be replayed until you commit the perfect crime, and maybe even a few times after that. There’s no one way to get away with it, and each time you play you discover new objectives that keep things interesting as you replay the same day over and over again. Each time I thought I’d discovered all the game’s secrets, another checkbox got added to my objective list for the next playthrough. Getting away with the murder is fairly easy - I was able to do it on the first try. But can you get away with it and get the insurance money to fund your new life in America? What about leaving the ship with no loose ends? You only have a few short hours to cover your trail and silence the witnesses - be careful how you spend them!
The game is short enough that replaying it isn’t tedious, and the game is built to optimize the experience of playing it 15 times in a row. You’re able to fast-forward through encounters and auto-select choices you selected the last time around, which are highlighted in green so you know what you’ve already tried. You can even rewind encounters once if you want to try another path without resetting the entire game. There are some slight variations to keep your interest, and the mechanics are configured perfectly to let the player speed through the parts they’ve already seen, and appreciate new conversations and discoveries. The game revolves around exploring and interviewing fellow passengers on the boat. However, rather than trying to find clues and break alibis, you’re trying to plant false leads and frame someone else for the murder you committed.
I can’t recommend this game enough. It’s light, ridiculously engaging, and vibrant in every sense of the word. The puzzle of figuring out when to be where on the boat and how to manipulate the other passengers will keep you replaying Overboard! for hours.
