Veronica Villensey is many things: a former actress, a wife to a wealthy husband, and now, her biggest role of all: a murderer.
But, to be fair, the bastard deserved it. When Veronica pitches her dear husband Malcolm over the side of the cruise ship, she sets in motion events that she could neither have predicted nor evaded — unless, of course, she were able to relive them a second time. And a third. And a fourth, and a fifth...
Overboard! is the latest game from narrative-focused studio Inkle — makers of Heaven's Vault, 80 Days, and Sorcery!, all of which are fantastic — but this one's different. It was made in just a few months, with the team beginning production at the start of 2021 and releasing at the start of June. And you really can't even tell. Inkle has its way of doing things perfected, and they even created their own word-engine, Inky, to do it, making them masters of a craft they pretty much invented.
The premise is simple, but the practicalities aren't. You killed your husband, and now you must cover it up — either as an accident or a murder that someone else committed, if you want to get the life insurance payout. Rather than a "whodunnit", it is most definitely a "youdunnit", and rather than discovering clues and unravelling lies, you're the one planting clues and weaving the lies in the first place.
The trick is not to overdo it, Veronica. You'll look suspicious. Instead, it's all about subtlety: placing evidence of your husband in someone else's room without getting caught, or slyly, casually pointing out someone else's motive.
For the first few rounds you will royally cock it all up. Veronica is stuck in a loop until she gets it right, much like 80 Days, so perhaps you'll push someone else off the boat in a moment of panic, forgetting that the captain can see you from the bridge; maybe you'll be overzealous about planting evidence and someone else will catch you red-handed.
But the joy in Overboard! is actually all about the cocking up, as Veronica repeatedly tries to distract people with the same "look! A dolphin! No, lean out a little further and you'll see it..." line that worked on her husband. Likewise, the failed starlet will also attempt to flirt, blackmail, and play innocent to get what she wants, but time and time again she'll be foiled by some little detail she didn't know about. Ah well. There's always next time.
All of Veronica's machinations are further complicated by an ever-progressing clock. You only have eight hours before the ship reaches land to get it all right; if you spend five minutes fixing your hair, you may miss a vital deadline elsewhere on the boat. There's even a clever and complicated "locked-in" time mechanic to make sure that the passengers are always moving around from room to room at the same time as Veronica, so things change every time you play — but we won't pretend to exactly understand how it works.
At the end of every playthrough, everyone will be gathered in the dining room, Poirot-style, where the passengers that you didn't inexpertly murder discuss what they saw... or think they saw. Depending on your actions, things will be revealed, motives will be questioned, blackmails will be blackmailed, and the group will come to a decision, which most often is an inconvenience to Veronica.
What you learned in that playthrough, though, can inform your next go around — perhaps you know exactly where to look for that incriminating photo, or perhaps you know someone's pressure points a little better. However, Veronica herself doesn't retain that knowledge, so you'll have to guide her into discovering it again. Luckily, you can fast-forward through dialogue and choices that you've made before.
It would be remiss of us not to mention other classy little details that Inkle has added to the whole affair to give it a certain aesthetic, too. The soundtrack is entirely recorded on wax cylinder, using some of Thomas Edison's own recordings to lend the game that crackly early-20th Century feel. There's an entirely playable Pontoon minigame that'll pit you against a man with secrets, using stolen money. Every day, you'll get new objectives, which will spur you on to trying new things, like getting someone to actually confess to the crime.
Oh, and if you get stuck, your 'hintline' is literally God. And he's not particularly impressed with you, by the way.
Because of the complexity of the web Inkle has woven in just a matter of months, there are the occasional loose ends — characters mentioning things that haven't happened, or knowing things they shouldn't — but it's honestly remarkable that the game works at all. These minor issues don't break the story, and the story is still this beautiful, complex, responsive thing that, for the most part, seems organic and real, as the characters orbit around each other being malicious and secretive. It's a masterpiece of smart and efficient narrative fabricwork that must have been an absolute nightmare to build, but it's beautiful nonetheless.
If you've ever watched The Talented Mr Ripley or Murder on the Orient Express, and thought to yourself, "Pah! I could have gotten away with it", then this is your chance. Inkle has achieved something pretty bloody brilliant in an impressively short space of time. The question is: can you do the same?
Conclusion
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.
Comments 41
I have this on my wishlist. I’ll get it when it’s on sale.
It’s absolutely utterly fantastic. One of the funniest games I’ve played in years. Inkle seemingly can’t stop releasing great games, on top of all the amazing work they do with their own engine.
Welp. No need to ask our Staff Writer about the British slang in use here.
Sounds like a good game
@COVIDberry There’s no such thing as British slang. Cockney slang is completely different from Liverpool slang which is completely different from Glasgow slang. Even between the East End and West End of Glasgow there’s totally different accents. Bit of a rant but my pet hate is people saying things like ‘British accent’ as it really doesn’t exist.
Yeah, it has a really interesting premise. It's uncomfortably interesting to play as the murderer and attempt to cover up your crime/frame others, I imagine. Of course, the success or failure of a game like this will all come down to how well it manages its strategic possibilities.
This would have been a day one pickup in a slower year, but it's absolutely on the list.
@nessisonett Totally true. Same for US where there are accents and slang different in each region.
😂😂from the thumbnail, I thought it was a new "where in the world is carmen sandiego" game
80 Days is simply brilliant, can't wait to tackle this one.
Will a robust English reader (I enjoy terry pratchett’s discworld universe untranslated, same for stephen king, douglas adams.... and reddit 😉) enjoy the writing?
Or -we pooor frenchmen- should avoid this delicate piece of subtle writing ??
That's such a clever and original concept for a game.
I've been wanting to get into Visual Novels for a while and this + Great Ace Attorney are at the top of my list. This is on there because it sounds really creative and Ace Attorney is on my list because there's apparently a load of old british stereotypes and there's also a character called Herlock Sholmes. How could I not want to play it?
What a cool idea for a game. I would have overlooked this, but I'll give it a chance now. Thanks!
@nessisonett Err, coming from God's own country of Yorkshire, I can definitely say that I have a genuine British accent.
@Tipehtfomottob I really can’t tell sarcasm over text so I’ll just err on the side of caution. A Yorkshire accent and a Glaswegian accent aren’t the same accent. They’re both in the UK. Hence British accents are a fallacy as there isn’t a singular accent or even really that many similarities between different accents in the UK. You have a Yorkshire accent.
No matter how good this game looks, I could never enjoy it knowing the double standards at play. If this game was about a man murdering his wife and trying to get away with it, there would be a firestorm of sexism accusations.
@Chocobo_Shepherd Seriously? Can’t you separate your views and just have fun with a game? I don’t understand why people have to get so political about everything.
@Chocobo_Shepherd The guy’s a Nazi. If it was a sweet lovely guy then the premise wouldn’t work. You wouldn’t connect with the protagonist. It’s like writing 101.
@SenseiDje Well, just from reading your very well written message here, I’d say you have a pretty good grasp of English!!
The writing in this game is done in an almost minimal, efficient and precise way. Sentences are no longer than they need to be. Easy and fast to read, very “to the point” but with a lot of character and charm too, so I am 100% confident you would enjoy it and have no problems at all. Hope that helps!
@nessisonett "There’s no such thing as British slang"
Bollocks. Is there anyone in Britain who doesn't know what that word means? I highly doubt it.
I was watching that old Helen Mirren show "Prime Suspect" recently, and during one episode I had to scramble for an Internet definition of "bed-sitter".
And watching "Happy Valley" I had to learn all sorts of British slang like "minger", "pillock" and "nonce".
Growing up watching Monty Python, I had to look up words like "git", "pram", "pooftah" and "quid".
From what I understand, those are all well-known terms up and down the U.K., but not outside it.
@MontyCircus Almost every single one of the words you’ve written are exclusively English, and mostly from London. Do people in London use the words ‘boak’, ‘scunnered’, ‘mad wae it’, ‘square go’, ‘bam’, ‘glaikit’, ‘ned’, ‘teuchter’, ‘weans’, ‘pish’ etc? No they do not. To understand the UK, you have to grasp that the cultural variation is far greater in a far smaller area due to the unique political situation and histories of the individual nations.
@nessisonett Alright, so not British slang, but you admit there is "universal English slang" then.
In my defense, one of your illustrations was "Cockney slang is completely different from Liverpool slang". Londoners and Liverpudlians both know what quid and prams are. So not completely different, maybe slightly different.
@MontyCircus Well Cockney rhyming slang is 100% unique and then a lot of Scousers are almost unintelligible outside of Liverpool so there’s really not that much overlap. And English slang is not British slang. At least not for now, there are 3 more countries currently within the union. The difference in dialects between cities a couple of hours away is massively noticeable. Just the very fact that you have English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish accents and slang clear and distinct means that by definition you cannot assign a base ‘British’ descriptor. Especially considering Gaeilge, Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish and more are spoken and celebrated regionally as full languages outside of English.
@nessisonett I spent a few years in China, and their thousands of years of history complicates language infinitely more.
There's Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese, sure. But every province has their own dialect, every city and every town and every village has their own dialect, their own different pronunciations for EVERY WORD IN THE LANGUAGE!
Some examples: The standard Mandarin term for "lazy pig" is "lan zhu". But in one village I visited it is pronounced "la du".
We were out shopping one day and our driver said something to me: "fei jia". It took a while of watching gestures to figure out he meant, what in standard Mandarin is "hui jia".
I have a friend in Beijing who explained to me: you can live your whole life living in your home on your block, then walk down the street and turn a corner and not be able to understand a single word of a conversation just a block away, even though everyone involved is a Beijinger.
@nessisonett to be pedantic, you could say that 'British slang' is an umbrella term for slang in Britain. So if you were to do a paper on the difference between Cockney, Scouse, Mancunian, etc. slang, you could say you are doing a paper on British slang, because they are all in Britain
@Needeep
Thank you very much. To be precise, I was quite confident UNTIL this thread becomes about slang and folklore...
if nobody in this game is able to prove me guilty because I choose , let’s say, some underground docker swear word when I pretend to be some upperclass princess or whatever, I’m IN !!!!
@SenseiDje I see your point but I didn’t notice anything like is being mentioned in this thread. I think these 2 guys are just “bantering” (ooops… is that a London Exclusive expression?!? ).
To be fair, I probably didn’t notice in the game as it would be normal language for me. Anyway if you do get a bit stuck, you can learn some new words, right??
@nessisonett @0nett Oh really? Well, that's a horse of a (slightly) different color. The trailers I watched never mentioned it and this review never mentioned it either. So, I guess then the question is why that very important detail doesn't seem worth mentioning; which still, unfortunately, brings me to my original point. But, I am very glad that "the b-word* deserved it" is more than just that he's rich or arrogant or something.
So, honest question, do you not think the reverse would cause an outrage? Especially with the N4zi*-angle so completely ignored in marketing and reviews? You both stated that context as if it absolves the game, which I could agree with, but if it's never mentioned, it may as well not exist from the perspective of those who would pre-judge the game. Know what I mean?
Keep in mind, I am not outraged by this game, it is only the societal double standards that would sap my pleasure. I hope that was clear.
*I tried posting this yesterday but apparently since I'm new those words flagged my response and my account was automatically locked until I contacted the website admins to unlock it.
@Nerdfather1 Trust me, I want nothing more than the separation of entertainment and ideology. I completely agree with you there. I'll try to say again more clearly, I don't have a problem with this game. It is knowing that we live in a culture that operates under such double standards that would taint my experience. In other words, since so many other people view games through their own ideological lens, it makes this game feel inconsistent by comparison.
Inconsistent, unfair, imbalanced, unequal, unjust... whatever word fits best to you. You obviously don't have to agree, I just hope you can understand.
@Chocobo_Shepherd Well, these sorts of stories only work due to the power dynamic. Due to the setting, the husband had all the power and was abusive, controlling and a Nazi. Therefore you can relatively justify his murder. It’s harder to effectively write this dynamic but reversed but possible. But then due to aforementioned power dynamics at play in the world (read, patriarchy), it would be really difficult to portray a situation in which the wife could be justifiably murdered by the husband as a situation in which he felt powerless with no other recourse wouldn’t often come up.
@nessisonett
Ignoring the accent discussion, there are still words and phrases I'd consider British slang, though as an American, I truly could be just poorly informed.
For one, I never seem to hear Americans use the word "rubbish." I always assume a British speaker when I hear/see that.
@nessisonett Oh no, that I disagree with. I think men and women are equal.
@Chocobo_Shepherd Like… as in they should be? Or as in you actually genuinely believe that right now men and women are equal?
@nessisonett Men and women are of equal worth, yes. So, can't have different rules — especially in works of fiction where the author creates the reality.
@Chocobo_Shepherd You’re ignoring context though. Men haven’t been overtly discriminated against for thousands of years in the same way women have, therefore that discrimination can be represented in works of fiction set in the 1930s like this game. If the game just swapped the sex of every character in the game then it wouldn’t make sense. The Major wouldn’t be a Major as they would be a woman and women weren’t allowed back then. The captain of the ship wouldn’t be the captain as women weren’t allowed back then. And so forth. It’s a lot more complicated than you’re making it out to be as media doesn’t exist within a vacuum, especially when they’re period pieces.
@nessisonett It's ok, we have different views on these things. I'm not here to convince you, you're free to think what you want! I'm just adding voices to the discussion to make it as diverse as possible!
Wow I'm not into visual novel type games at all, but this sounds incredible.
@nessisonett
I have been meaning to ask, since I'm betting you have a good perspective on the language, which regional slang does "gob," come from?
@Kiwi_Unlimited That’s an interesting one. Etymologically speaking it’s a Gaelic word but it’s very very rarely used up in Scotland. In fact I’d probably go as far as to say it’s not really slang at that point. It’s so widely used across England and in everyday occurrences that I’d say it had a right to be in the dictionary under ‘informal’ rather than ‘slang’. So I’d say it’s more a British English word rather than a regional slang, despite mostly being an English word rather than the rest of the UK.
@nessisonett
You're fantastic!
I never would have guessed it had a Gaelic origin.
Thank you.
I definitely had fun trying it out and just posted a discussion about the game! Check it out:
https://youtu.be/JYdp_tUjJqI
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