Expelled! An Overboard Game review
The arrival of a new Inkle game is always cause for celebration in my books, but I’ll admit I was somewhat surprised when Expelled received ‘An Overboard Game’ as an addendum. Previously known as Miss Mulligatawny’s School for Promising Girls, the name change did dampen my excitement for it a bit, because as much as I’ve enjoyed Inkle’s games in the past, Overboard is probably the one I’ve liked the least. It’s got nothing to do with the game’s top notch writing or deliciously villainous heroine, nor its frankly brilliant premise of trying to get away with literal murder before you arrive into New York by boat and face the awaiting police.
Expelled! An Overboard Game reviewDeveloper: Inkle StudiosPublisher: Inkle StudiosPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out on 12th March on PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch and iOS
Rather, what did it in for Overboard was my own propensity for replaying games once I reach a reasonably concrete conclusion. You see, I managed to get away with murder on my second or third go back when Overboard came out in 2021, and when individual runs take roughly 30 minutes a pop to complete, it rather killed the thrill of pinning the blame on someone else dead in the water. For me, detective games are at their most alive when I’m still shuffling all its puzzle pieces around in my head. The excitement of ‘not knowing’ any of its secrets dissipates the moment anything starts locking into place, and Overboard was just one of those games where I got to that point quicker than most. There are, of course, numerous ways to wriggle out of harm’s way in Overboard, but I never felt like I was given much reason to seek them out other than for the sake of my own curiosity – and when you find yourself thinking ‘Is that it?’ at the end of a run, that’s a pretty hard place to come back from.
Expelled! Official trailer – release date announcement Watch on YouTube
The good news here, though, is that despite sharing its name and general structure with Overboard, Expelled is an altogether different kind of replayable mystery game. You play perfect student Verity Amersham, who’s been framed for pushing head girl and legendary hockey champ Louisa Hardcastle out of the historic, and very expensive, stained-glass window up in the library tower. Thankfully, Louisa doesn’t die from her injuries, but this deplorable act of treachery against the school’s most vaunted student is still enough to put you in the hotseat for instant expulsion – a fate you need to avoid by proving your innocence and finding the real culprit who did it instead.
It’s Overboard in reverse, in other words, and a premise that allows Expelled to become a much more traditional kind of detective game as a result. A crime has been committed, evidence must be gathered and presented, and the truth must be revealed with watertight conviction. It’s not the type of game you can simply freestyle a solution to on your second or third go, as its formidable headmistress, Miss Mulligatawny, will take some serious convincing before you’re able to succeed. She’s a wily and fearsome judge, jury and executioner who’s determined to see you fail in your final hours of term-time, and she won’t suffer weedy and frivolous accusations lightly.
