When inkle releases a new game, I sit up and pay attention.
This UK-based studio has developed some of the most innovative and engaging visual novel/adventure games of the last decade, including Sorcery!, 80 Days, and Heaven’s Vault. However, it was their 2021 release of Overboard!, a time loop game that put a wicked twist on Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries, that fully hooked me. As a fan of “whodunits,” I was instantly intrigued by the premise of being the murderer, trying to get away with it, and planting clues and evidence to lead the detective to the wrong conclusion so you could get away scot-free. It was like a narrative-based rogue-lite with the methodical planning and time management of Hitman in the mix. And I wasn’t the only person who was enamoured. Overboard! was a well-deserved critical success for inkle, so it makes sense to build on that momentum by developing it into a franchise!
In Expelled!, you are Verity Amersham, a student at Miss Mulligatawney’s School for Promising Young Girls in 1922. One morning during assembly, the headmistress publicly accuses you of pushing Louisa Hardcastle, a school prefect and captain of the hockey team, through a priceless stained glass window, down several stories to the bushes below. You’re innocent, but that doesn’t matter; you’re expelled! Except that isn’t quite what happened. Yes, you met with her in the tower, but she was the one who smashed the window with your stolen hockey stick and jumped, framing you for the crime. Or maybe that isn’t what happened, either? To clear your name, you must relive the day of your expulsion over and over, learning the routines of your fellow students and teachers to discover their secrets. Only by gathering this information can you discover who really committed this terrible crime and keep yourself from being expelled!
While the mechanics remain similar, Expelled! has a somewhat different feel from Overboard!. There, the mystery was solved from the start: you did it. Here, inkle crafts a compelling mystery, asking not only what happened in the tower but why. Why did the hockey captain shatter the stained glass? Why did she fall? Most importantly, why is the headmistress so eager to expel you, even though she seems to suspect you’re innocent?
An average day works like this: You start in the tower, where Louisa smashes the windows and falls to the ground. From that point, you have the freedom to do whatever you want within the school, but remember: the clock is always ticking. If you remain at the crime scene too long, another student may discover you and report you to the headmistress. You could try to create an alibi by waking up your roommate immediately to make it seem like you were in your room the entire morning. Or you could go exploring before school starts, maybe breaking into some of the classrooms to see what goodies are hiding in the teachers’ desks. Of course, Verity is a “good girl” and would never do such a dishonest thing…at first.
After a few expulsions, you will start to learn that being a goody-two-shoes is not a viable survival technique in the cutthroat environment of a girls’ boarding school. That’s where the morality system comes in. Throughout the game, you can make choices that are considered “naughty,” significantly expanding Verity’s options in how to deal with her teachers and classmates. The naughtier you are, the more choices open up. In other words, you have to get your hands dirty to survive the day. The only question is, how far are you willing to go? With enough devious actions, you can rise through the ranks of naughtiness, going from mischievous to nasty to maybe even genuinely evil.
The game’s interface is minimal, offering a handful of options in the top corners of the screen. On the left, you can view your to-do list (which automatically updates with every run). This list might include tasks like “Why did Louisa jump,” “Can I find myself an alibi,” or “Should I do my Latin homework.” Next to this, a small window tracks your “naughtiness” level with your inventory beside it. At one point, Verity comments on being a kleptomaniac, and given the amount of things she can fit into her school uniform’s pockets, I believe her! These items range from seemingly random objects like a hand mirror to clues from the crime scene or weapons like your hockey stick. Since items always spawn in the same locations, you quickly learn where to find the most useful ones at the beginning of each run. The trick, of course, is finding time to collect these necessary items before the window to use them closes.
Though items are useful, information is the most important thing to collect each run. Whenever you discover a new piece of gossip, it appears at the top of the screen, vanishing a few seconds later. If there is one feature I feel is missing from Expelled!, it is a system for tracking learned information. There were so many details to remember that it became easy to lose track of what I “knew” in each run, occasionally leaving me feeling adrift without a clue. I suspect not including one is a deliberate design choice by inkle, but I wish they had reconsidered. Thankfully, there is an item hidden somewhere in the school to remind you of details you learned in each loop, and getting it is a necessary step in a successful run. But even after you’ve found it, you still can’t go into it to reference information after you learned it.
Much like inkle’s other games, the presentation here is deceptively simple, hiding a massive amount of complexity in what appears to be simplicity. When interacting with characters, you usually have only two or three dialogue options, but your choice can open up countless other directions for the conversation and your run. It helps that every character is richly developed with their own desires and secrets. From your roommate Nattie’s apparent tragic past to younger student Susan’s academic struggles to Louisa’s motive for destroying the window in the first place, every character feels distinct and well-rounded.
The art style in Expelled! is very similar to Overboard!, which makes sense for a spin-off. The only real difference in the character portraits is that outlines are white in Overboard! and black here. Every character is instantly recognizable, with a unique design that captures the era’s aesthetic. Though the cartoony character portraits are somewhat static with limited animation in certain sections and cutscenes, the game still delivers a remarkably cinematic quality. Split scenes and fast-paced cuts drive the visual action, especially in the first minutes of the game. The opening credits, a darkly comedic cutscene where Louisa endlessly falls from the window, is the perfect way to launch us into the world of Expelled!.
That said, the music is the one area where the game falls slightly short. Though the opening theme that plays under the credits is fantastic, inkle has pulled most of the soundtrack from authentic compositions of the 1920s. Yes, these songs did help establish the period and setting, but they also don’t feel like they “fit” into the world inkle has created. As everything else about their work feels so handmade and bespoke, I would have loved more original compositions in the style of the era. In future games, this could be an interesting avenue for exploration, with certain songs highlighting emotional moments or even providing subtle clues in musical form. This is a minor quibble, though, as the musical choices do their job, effectively setting the scene for this wonderful mystery.
Overboard! was a fantastic example of what could be done with a visual novel, and Expelled! improves on that blueprint in every way. Most VNs have terrible replay value, but this one is so loaded with secrets, hidden paths, and compelling characters that players are likely to keep returning to it. Even though I completed the main objectives, I wanted to keep digging until I uncovered every dark secret hidden in the walls of this school. Expelled! is simply one of the best puzzle-box games I’ve ever played, with thousands of moving pieces working in concert to create a wonderfully reactive world.
With exceptional writing, beautiful art, a compelling environment, and a captivating central gameplay mechanic, Expelled! is a video game work of art. If you have any interest in visual novels, adventure games, whodunits, or time loops, I can’t recommend it enough. Believe me, you will want to play this one again and again!
