Expelled!

In 2021, the developer Inkle released a game called Overboard! Here you played as a delightfully amoral actress who after murdering her husband, had to "prove" her innocence by letting someone else take the blame. You could even add more bodies to your already burdened conscience along the way. The spiritual sequel Expelled! is largely built on the same formula, but it expands and refines it considerably.

It's 1922, a 16-year-old Verity Amersham is just one day shy of finishing her fourth year at an all-girls school when disaster strikes. A cryptic message lures her to the library tower, where she witnesses her friend, Louisa Hardcastle, shattering an antique stained glass window before throwing herself off the ledge. Fortunately, a thorn bush breaks Louisa's fall.

However, this doesn't let Verity off the hook. Despite being innocent (of this crime at least) all the evidence points at her. To clear her name, she must uncover what drove Louisa to jump. Or perhaps she'll find a way to frame someone else. Or she might even discover a get-out-of-jail-free card. The options are nearly limitless, and you can't do it all in one playthrough.

As mentioned, it all begins with you being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The rest of the game then is all about being in the right place at the right time—ideally also with the right items in your pocket. In a similar way to Outer Wilds and The Forgotten City, this game follows an information-driven Metroidvania structure. By uncovering key information, you can manipulate characters, perform previously locked actions, and even discover new areas.

Some information you'll need to store in your own mental hard drive—like how students and teachers move about the school or where certain objects can be found. Other details are tracked by the game itself. Cleverly, information carries over between playthroughs through Verity's little gossip book. What you previously learned—perhaps by blackmailing a fellow student—now becomes something Verity has overheard and later recorded in her diary.

This is yet another way the game elevates the already excellent storytelling of Overboard! Now it actually makes sense in the story, why you play it multiple times. The game features a frame narrative where Verity recounts the events to her father. Every time you tell a lie - that is you getting expelled or even killed doing a playthrough - he questions you, and you start over in a new story until you finally have the "true" story.

As you'd hope from a text-based game, the dialogue is razor-sharp. The girls' school must have some very generous benefactors, as there are only a handful of students. But what the school lacks in numbers, it more than makes up for in personality. We meet Natasha, who claims to be Russian nobility, the sassy and sharp-tongued Fifi, who holds a grudge towards us, and the tough yet surprisingly complex headmistress.

But the real star of the show is Verity herself. She's a sly devil - manipulative and charming, or brash and direct, depending on what is called for. Verity is also the only character to be voiced (by Amelia Tyler, the narrator of Baldur's Gate 3), though only in select scenes. However, the text never stands alone. Every cocky remark or startled outburst is brought to life by warm, vibrant character illustrations with expressive, almost theatrical gestures. Add to that an energetic, jazzy soundtrack, and you have a stylish and atmospheric presentation.

You'll likely reach the credits in about three to five hours. Along the way, you'll inevitably tread the same paths and click through the same dialogue multiple times. Fortunately, hitting certain milestones allows you to skip certain sections and complete some actions faster. However, I wish the game had introduced more of these shortcuts. Unfortunately, the skip function isn't as effective as it could be either - or perhaps it's too effective! If you hold the button down, you simply skip by, not only lines of text, but also choices.

While many narrative games have choices and branching paths, Expelled! is more like a dense thorn bush, not unlike the one that Louisa Hardcastle lands in. The narrative twists and turns in many directions, and while our unfortunate protagonist might experience some brushes along the way, it's hugely rewarding to find new paths and untangle the whole mess. Unfortunately, this structure does allow for some bugs to creep in, and I had a number of instances of characters getting shocked by what they already knew or reacting to objects that were no longer present. However, these are nothing more than blemishes, and Inkle has crafted yet another game that raises the bar for interactive fiction.