LogFAQs > #967220960

#18: Overboard!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/5/8/AAA-H0AADjPG.jpg

Far from being a tired cliche, in my opinion, games featuring time loops have become an established staple, a gimmick that I think should be used in the future because it has a lot of functionality. There's a lot of reasons why a game might use a time loop; it might give the player an in-game reason to have more than one attempt at a challenging task, it might allow the game to tell multiple versions of the same story, or it might provide a snapshot of one moment in time in a living, breathing world that can be explored. But I think the most intriguing way a time loop can be utilized is giving you the power to change the future with your actions by experimenting to see what works and what doesn't, and using info from previous loops to do everything perfectly.

Ever since Majora's Mask, I've been waiting for the game that really pulls off that "Groundhog Day" concept. Groundhog Day is one of my favorite films, and one of the things I find captivating about it is the idea that after experiencing this time loop so many times, Phil knows everything about this little moment in time and the people that inhabit it, and has tried everything and learned from past experiences so much, that he can engineer a perfect day where everything goes precisely to plan. Majora's Mask has a little bit of this idea, exploring Clock Town and observing what events happen at what times, and figuring out where you need to be at what time; but I think there's only so many sidequests that really utilize this mechanic, and for the most part it's just talking to someone at the right time of day. I've always felt like a game could take this idea of engineering the 'perfect day' and take it a little further into some kind of adventure game format. Overboard is not my favorite time loop game of all time, but it might be the one that best captures this idea.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/5/9/AAA-H0AADjPH.jpg

Overboard is something of a reverse murder mystery; instead of an adventure game where you try to solve a murder, you instead assume the role of a murderer trying to escape guilt. You play as Veronica Villensly, a young woman in a loveless marriage who's just thrown her husband titularly Overboard on a fancy cruise ship, and over the next day you must find a way to get away with your crime before you dock. Sounds easy enough, except you soon find that nearly everyone on the boat is rightfully suspicious of you for one reason or another, so you'll have to figure out how to get everyone off your case, or to shut up about what they saw.

This game is a farce-comedy adventure/VN where you go to different rooms of the ship and talk to people (with many dialog choices) or snoop around (with many possible actions), all taking place over an 8-hour day where the guests on the boat each have their own routines. The first time you play, well, you're probably going to get caught, because it turns out the evidence is not in Ms. Villensly's favor. But that's fine; you wake up the next day with everything reset and a helpful checklist of things to try and accomplish next in order to get one step towards freedom. The time loop here isn't a major part of the story; Veronica herself just briefly acknowledges memories of past loops, but it's mostly just for the player's sake. Playing the day again over and over, you gradually come to learn more about the other guests on the boat, uncovering their secrets and figuring out how they can be silenced, until you can combine all of your knowledge into a perfectly engineered day that gets you off the hook.

This game could have become very overwhelming, and still does at some points, but they did some things wisely to overcome that. The size of the cast and number of locations are both quite modest, so even though it feels like there's a lot of different things you could possibly do, the game isn't nearly as overwhelming as it appears at first glance. And maybe this is just a me thing, but in video games, I often struggle with making evil or just plain stupid choices, but this game's tone is so light and breezy despite all the murder that I never had a problem being a bastard, partly because Veronica is such an affable and charming protagonist, and partly because half the people on the boat are even more awful than she is. Everyone's awful! But it's a fun kind of awful, and the game's distinct style and enjoyable writing keeps the game flowing at a good pace. Going back and trying every single choice to exhaust my options never got old and there aren't so many of them that I felt bogged down.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/6/0/AAA-H0AADjPI.jpg

Still, as far as time loop games go, this one is pretty challenging. It's not very long - you can probably figure out how to get the game's best ending in as little as 4 hours, if you're a bit smarter than me - but it's a really worthwhile puzzle to figure out. Unlike a game like Forgotten City that uses a similar time loop premise, where all you need to do is just talk to everyone in town a few times and eventually you'll exhaust every quest line just by stumbling around, Overboard demands thought, planning, and precise action. Stumbling around the boat will eventually help you gather the information you need to succeed, but you need to actually think about how to apply it to get anything done. What's more is that there's actually multiple ways to solve every problem, and the game accounts for a lot of different possibilities, depending on what each character knows and in what way you've manipulated them.

The fact that you need to have a plan to win stymied me for a fair bit, actually, and I had to put this game down for a little bit and come back to it later. A few hours in and I just couldn't figure out what the next step I needed to take was. Taking a slightly different tack with a particular character got me there, and after that I was able to tie everything else up. Getting the game's best ending was a truly satisfying victory unlike I've had in most adventure games; it felt so satisfying to figure out how to make all of the dominos fall just right, so that every character has been played right into the palm of my hand. It actually felt like I had to figure it all out. It made me feel like a genius mastermind! That's a sort of experience that I haven't truly gotten to feel in a time loop game of this sort to date.

As I said, it's quite short, but feels really packed full of content and doesn't overstay its welcome. It's a brilliant premise with entertaining writing and a style all its own that pulls off its concept about as well as I could expect. I didn't want to talk about it in too great a detail since there's a few fun surprises here and there and all of the solutions to this murder puzzle are worth discovering on one's own. Needless to say, I recommend checking it out. (I can't stress enough how painful it is to only rank this game #18 on this list. It's great. Everything else on this list is also great.)

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