Overboard!

Overboard! allows us to imagine what would have happened had Agatha Christie seen Groundhog Day and written a whole new type of mystery novel as a result. Its mobile format also works in its favour – as a Switch or smartphone game, it feels like carrying a little detective paperback around with you, except here you are the lead character, author and reader. As an experiment in fast, story-based game development it is – unlike most of my own mariticidal plots and alibis – a quite scintillating success.

Even with multiple goals to accomplish, secrets to uncover, and potential endings to see, Overboard! isn’t going to last you months. This is a relatively short game. You might run through it thirty times, but many of those will take ten to fifteen minutes. Others might take thirty minutes to an hour on the long end, but this is an appetizer, the sort of game to be savored over a long weekend rather than obsessed over for months. That’s not a slight. That weekend will be filled with fascinating twists, especially considering you know from the very start what actually happened. Overboard! is a wonderful voyage, well worth your time. Just make sure you don’t go over the rail yourself.

Overboard! is one of the year’s most delightful surprises so far, a terrific reverse murder mystery with several twists and turns around every corner, and one that can still put up a notable challenge as you try to figure out every possible step towards getting Veronica off the hook and on the path to a life of luxury instead. A mix of sharp writing, clever puzzles and simple yet effective gameplay results in a killer experience that will leave you coming back for more.

Overboard is a charming and darkly funny game, with incredibly well-written characters and a great atmosphere of intrigue, secrecy and 1930s style.

Where 80 Days was about the broad implications of travelling the entire globe, Overboard! focuses instead on the minutiae of a single day, and the intricacies of interaction. It's a glorious study in how to create a delicate Rube Goldberg machine of dialogue and dependencies, as a cast of mostly terrible people waltz around each other with ulterior motives and pre-existing feelings about everything, including our Veronica and dear, departed Malcolm. It's excellent: play it.

Overboard is a brilliant narrative video game through and through. The unique premise sets up a tangled web that is engrossing to figure out, as you take your villainous widow through all sorts of scenarios where she does everything from kill again to perfectly set up someone else to take the fall. This might not be as altruistic as other time loop games in the pantheon, but it’s certainly one of the most ingenious in its design.

Overboard! is simply an incredible puzzle-box of a game. The ship’s small size and the limited timeframe for events hide tremendous content and depth. Uncovering all the secrets of the passengers for your own ends will require careful observation, repetition, and smart choices. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you stumble upon another possible way to get away with the crime. Your first few runs are likely to be fruitless, but the writing is at such a high level that even failure leaves you entertained. Set sail with Overboard! It’s a murderously good time!

Inkle Studios' Overboard won't be every gamer and why should it be? If you're the type who likes to take a more relaxed approach to their gaming and don't mind reading then Overboard is a solid game choice! You as the player make your own choices and choose your own actions to drive the story down different paths. A lot of the fun is based on playing a detective's nemesis where you're trying to outwit other characters to get away with murder!

Overboard! is a bite-sized puzzle adventure at sea. The compelling story and schedule-solving action are tied up into a neat and stylish package. The impeccable puzzle logic will make you feel like you are battling Holmes or Poirot, doing your best to be one step ahead in each playthrough. Overall, Overboard! is a worthy puzzle game, especially if you've ever wanted to play a murder mystery game as the villain!

Overboard! is a short but sweet murder mystery adventure with lashings of sophisticated style and an addictive gameplay loop. There’s always something new to see when playing the same day over and over again by making different choices and decisions.

It all adds up to a small but perfectly formed experience that any fan of a good murder mystery is recommended to investigate - if only to see how the other half does things. Inkle's reputation for interactive storytelling was already stellar, and you really must play 80 Days if you've not - but if Overboard! is a sign of what the studio can achieve in the same amount of time it takes some of us to choose a pair of curtains or decide which new-gen console to pick up when we can, well, what a team, frankly.

Overboard is an engaging and puzzling narrative experience, with a striking visual style and a great level of replayability to boot.

Funny, engaging, simple yet satisfying, this little narrative adventure gives a great amount of fun, despite being relatively short for non-completionists.

If you're ever feeling a bit villainous though or want to test your skills of manipulation, Overboard! is a fun one to dive into. [Issue #54 – September 2021, p. 27]