Expelled! An Overboard! Game

Back in 2021, Inkle released a fun little murder mystery called Overboard!, where you were tasked with investigating a cruise ship and dealing with its eccentric passengers. Now, four years later, the Overboard series is back with an all-new mystery that takes us to an all-girl boarding school where rumors and gossip float like the wind. With a new cast and location, it’s time to investigate what happened when a student gets tossed out a window. The entire school seems to think it knows what happened, but they’re wrong, and it’s up to the players to either crack the case or pin it on somebody else. Find out how that goes when I review Expelled! An Overboard! Game.

The young lady in fear of being expelled is Verity Amersham, who definitely, absolutely, probably ... maybe (?) is responsible for pushing Louisa out the window. And not just any window, but a centuries’ old stained-glass window at Miss Mulligatawney’s School for Promising Girls. Told through extremely one-sided flashbacks, Verity recounts what happened on that fateful day, which may include bending the truth here and there, whenever it benefits her. She’ll need to lie, steal, gossip and manipulate everybody around her in order to not only prove her innocence, but, most importantly, to not get expelled.

Of course, proving your innocence is easier said than done, especially in the year 1922. With no surveillance cameras or modern forensics to reveal the truth, Verity is going to need to rely on her classmates and teachers, all of which have their own agendas. We learn that Louisa had her own friend group, while another student wants to replace Verity in the school play. There’s also gossip and intrigue floating around that may help to answer some of the questions, or may send our hero on a wild goose chase. Through conversations, clue hunting and just being at the right place at the right time, Verity hopes to be able to clear her name. Or, at the very least, pin the crime on somebody else.

Believe it or not, all of this happens on the final day of the term. That doesn’t give Verity much time to crack the case. The conceit here is that you’re going to replay the same day over and over again, retelling it until everything falls into place. The good news is that Verity will retain all of the knowledge she learned from past retellings, so you won’t necessarily need to repeat the same conversations every time. She’ll be able to investigate a different part of the school with each new play-through, and then act on the new clues she learns the next time around. The game is set up to so that you can’t beat it in just one or two plays, but rather you have to keep peeling back the layers until you have a firm understanding of what happened and can get Verity out of trouble. And even after that happens, it will open up an even darker secret about the school and her classmates.

Like a lot of Inkles past games, Expelled is really just a series of conversations. Everybody has a story to tell or information to give, so it’s all about spending time with them and finding the right path to extract the clues. What makes this challenging is that Verity is already unfairly judged because she came to the boarding school through a scholarship. To both her peers and the adults in control of the school, she’s seen as an outcast. It’s easy to understand why somebody might accuse her of this terrible crime. And it certainly doesn’t help her case that she was seen at the crime scene by at least one other person. But Verity is adamant that she did not do it and is being framed. And maybe she’s right.

Because you’re constantly talking to people, a lot of the game revolves around learning the gossip about each student and then using that to manipulate the situation. Verity may also need to spread a few rumors of her own, or perhaps even reveal the ugly truth about a fellow classmate. A lot of the game comes down to you figuring out where to go, who to talk to and what to say. You can have very different conversations with the same person in two different play-throughs, depending on how much information you have at the time. Finding the seed of evidence will allow you to push forward and learn something new, which you can use to either find an important clue or advance the story.

As she investigates the school, Verity may need to be a little naughty in order to find the clues she needs. We aren’t given a health bar, like in most games, but rather a way to see how naughty the wannabe detective has been over the course of all of the retellings. This meter will go up when she has to lie to somebody or worse, like breaking into the medical cabinet or planting evidence on a schoolmate. Some of the naughtiness will go away as she does the things expected of a “promising young girl,” such as showing up on time for her classes. Of course, going to geometry class may interfere with gathering evidence, so we’re going to need to make a lot of hard decisions about whether it’s more important to do the right thing ... or be a little naughty.

What I really like about this game is how it always feels like you’re learning something new with each retelling. Even if you only learn one new thing, that will open up a whole new avenue full of possibilities. There was never a play-through that felt pointless, and I couldn’t wait to jump back in and take advantage of the new information I learned the last time around. And it’s more than that, because you’ll start to memorize where everybody is and what they are doing every minute of the day. This will allow you to stealthy interrogate suspects and gather up information. You may need to clean up evidence before a certain person shows up, something that adds to the tension.

This is the kind of narrative game that Inkle is so good at making. They have given us a small cast full of incredibly memorable characters, each with something to hide or reveal. The conversations are usually interesting, sprinkled with funny jokes and witty turn of phrase. Verity is a lot of fun to be around, as she’s a little sarcastic and not afraid to be a bit naughty. She’s believable as an overly dramatic schoolgirl, so it makes sense that nobody believes her story at first.

It helps that the character designs are so expressive. The graphics are simple and clean, looking almost like a board game brought to life. The cast isn’t overly detailed, but the artwork does an excellent job of conveying how they feel from one moment to the next. The old timey music also goes a long way to remind you that this game is set more than a hundred years ago. But even if this is 1922, somethings never change, like gossip and scandals. I don’t care what year it is, teenagers are brutal.

For as much as I enjoyed replaying the story after gathering up new information, there were some play-throughs where I felt hopelessly lost. It’s easy to get caught up in a clue that isn’t all that important, especially when you don’t have a lot to go on. There aren’t a whole lot of locations to investigate, either, which get a little boring after a while. And let me tell you, you’ll either cheer or groan when the other shoe drops, revealing a fun twists that shakes up the game in a bunch of interesting ways. I liked how everything played out, but I could see some not going along with the more outlandish bits.

The truth is, Expelled won’t be for everybody. It’s perfectly in line with Inkle’s past games, which have emphasized an interactive story over gameplay. If you’re not into this style of graphic adventure game, then every part of Expelled is going to be like nails on a chalkboard. I could see some players being more than a little frustrated by the limited conversation options, as more astute detectives might be able to crack the case before uncovering all of the clues needed to beat the game.

That doesn’t describe me, because I had a thoroughly good time with this mystery. I loved the setting, the style and, of course, the gossip. I liked that Verity had to clear her name; it added a real sense of urgency that might not have been there in a more passive adventure game. This is a fun and unique way to tell this kind of mystery, and it kept me glued to the screen with every new retelling. Inkle is onto something truly great with the Overboard franchise.