Overboard
It's the most wonderful time of the year: the holiday sales on the Nintendo eshop! After reading this article (https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/46-games-you-should-pick-up-in-the-nintendo-switch-eshop-holiday-sale-europe) my interest was piqued by 'Overboard'. I first noticed this game when it came out three years ago, but it was a bit expensive for a short game and I forgot about it until now!
It's a whodunnit in reverse! Instead of trying to find out who did it, you know who did it: It was you! You are the murderer and you're trying to cover up your crime!
Story
You play as Veronica Villensey, a former actor, on board a ship crossing the Atlantic in 1935. You throw your husband overboard during a nightly stroll on the deck (Look there darling, a dolphin!) and the game starts as you wake up the next morning.
I won't spoil much of the story here, but it's written excellently!
Gameplay and controls
Controls are easy: pick a dialogue option and that's it! Support for the touchscreen is there, so that's an option as well.
Gameplay goes like this: in the style of a text based adventure, it's up to you to pick the right dialogue option to cover up your crimes (do you crumple your bed and make it appear as if your husband slept there? Or do you leave it so it's clear he never slept there?) and talk to other passengers to get them on your side and feed them false information. You can navigate to different parts of the ship, but every dialog option and movement takes time, and you only have until the end of the day before the ship reaches its destination and a general meeting with all passengers is called and all passengers discuss the crime that happened and who is responsible.
On your first run, you'll obviously fail in getting away with murder, but fret not! The game resets back to when you push your husband overboard (the scream as he falls overboard is so amusing, I always end up laughing when it happens) and you get another chance at covering up your tracks, but this time: you have information you did not have before and can try out different options!
The game also gives you a couple 'objectives' that guide you in the right direction to help you solve the 'how to get away with murder' question. And if that's not enough, you can always visit the chapel and ask God himself for help. Which he reluctantly gives!
Visuals and audio
Visuals are good, lovely cartoony drawings. Audio is great! The jazzy music was recorded on wax cylinders, just like in the good old days, giving the game an age appropriate look and feel (and hearing, if that's a thing...)
Verdict
I've played about 10 runs, and I've managed to get away with murder a couple times, but there's some loose ends and alternative methods I want to investigate, so I'll keep playing a little longer.
It's a short game: howlongtobeat has it at 2-3 hours for a story mode run. Completionists like me will take a little longer to figure out all the intricacies of the story and the characters on the ship, but it's the perfect lenght! It has that 'one more try' quality of a soulslike that gets you going for a while!
I call this type of game a 'pallet cleanser', something short and sweet in between beefy games like The Witcher 3 or Persona or other 50+ hour behemoths. Pick it up, play it for a couple hours in a single sitting or a weekend, and then go on with another game.