From left to right: Claudia, Emerelda, Lisa, Octavia, Ami, Coraleen, and Saphyria
Girls Overboard is a puzzle H-Game with Dating Sim elements created by AGL Studios. The game was officially released for PC on June 2, 2022, and became free-to-play on January 19, 2023.Gameplay consists of playing a slot machine in order to fish up gems and Sand Dollars, the former of which are then matched in a "Bubble Shooter" game in order to raise the affection of various girls in order to win their hearts, and the latter used to purchase upgrades to the slot machine or new outfits for the girls.
Tropes:
- Adjustable Censorship: The base game does not contain any lewd content. However, it was released alongside a free "Wet'n'Wild" DLC that adds a significant number of lewd outfits and alters all of the date events to be more sexual; once installed, the option to toggle 18+ imagery on and off becomes available in the game's options.
- Advertised Extra: Despite Saphyria's prominence in key images, she isn't a base-game dateable character with multiple outfits and lewd events; rather, she runs the in-game store, with a single event (split into two parts in the Gallery) when it is first unlocked.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: The only times that Ami and her mother Miya are in an event together are in the former's final date event, when she's brought the protagonist home to have sex and is embarrassed by Miya offering them both fresh oven-baked cookies, and in the latter's final Halloween event, when they bump into Amy at the costume party and, after expressing confusion that the protagonist brought her mom as his partner, she tells them she'll ignore it as long as they pretend not to know her.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Sand Dollars are earned through the slot machine, and can be spent by either improving your fishing net, which permanently makes the slots give better payouts, or on outfits, which improves the rate at which the Freemium Timer recharges in addition to showing off the girls in salacious clothes. There are also other costume packs that are exclusively earned through Microtransactions.
- Barely-There Swimwear: Multiple outfits that the girls can wear are variations of these, such as Ami's Invisible Bikini, Emerelda's Minty Micro and Crystal Love, and Coraleen's Micro Hearts.
- Brainless Beauty: A downplayed example; Lisa's not obviously stupid, but her second date event has her admit that she was actually at the bottom of her class when training to be a lifeguard, and only graduated because the instructor said her body would help convince more people to come to the beach.
- Childhood Friend Romance: One of the game's default seven girls is Coraleen, a mermaid girl that the protagonist has known all of his life, and is the one that advises him to make gifts out of gems to woo other girls because he used to make rings and bracelets for her when they were younger. She's both surprised and joyful to be in the list of people he's interested in.
- Crossover: The first bonus character added after launch, unlocked through paying either 300,000 Sand Dollars or three Pearls, is Talia from Future Fragments.
- Deal with the Devil: At the end of Octavia's date events, she has the player sign an actual contract before engaging in lovemaking...and then reveals that she's tricked the player into signing over their soul, and that her room is lined with the tormented souls of her past victims, but she enjoyed the sex enough to keep the player alive (for now).
- Freemium Timer: The Slots used to generate more gems for the main "Bubble Shooter" segment doesn't cost any resources to use, but it is connected to a Stamina meter. Stamina recharges over time, but can be instantly refilled with a water bottle, and also instantly refills and increases in size whenever you spin enough times to "level up". However, the rate that Stamina recharges improves if an unlocked girl has a rare outfit equipped; by the end of the Version 1.0 content, with seven girls each wearing a five-star outfit, the Slots can be pulled every three seconds. The first major post-launch patch addressed this with the option to spend more Stamina at once in order to increase the payouts.
- Fun with Acronyms: Ami's one-person activism organization is called "Aqua Nautical Animal Liberation", or A.N.A.L.
- Holiday Mode: For Halloween 2022, the roulette offered Pumpkin Tickets that could be exchanged for limited-time witch costumes and packs of "bait" that double payouts (and is only consumed on successful spins), as well as a three-part story about Miya and the protagonist heading to a costume party and getting harassed by a demon along the way.
- Human Notepad: The Microtransaction-exclusive "Body Writing Outfit Bundle" added to the game alongside Madison, and exclusive to the uncensored version of the game, gives the core cast costumes in which they're wearing their panties on their head and their otherwise-naked bodies are covered in sexual doodles and derogatory language written in colored marker.
- Lady of War: Claudia is the commander of her own battleship, and she's so passionate about the artillery cannon that's recently been installed on it that her last date scene is making love on it during a test firing.
- Match-Three Game: The game's 1.0 release had the player match the gems they earn in a grid, with bonuses for connecting more than three gems at once or causing a chain of matches. This would earn the player Dust that matched the color of the combined gems, which could be consumed to craft Gifts to raise Relationship Values, with each girl having a preferred color of gift. A December 2022 update simplified this system by just having the girls gain affection directly from good performance during the minigame, while also replacing the old matching gameplay with a "Bubble Shooter" mode similar to Puzzle Bobble.
- Mermaid Problem: All three of the mermaid characters lack genitals, though Coraleen appears to have a backside when you help her put on sunscreen while she sunbathes. Their sex scenes bypass this problem by transforming them into humans; Emerelda temporarily transforms into a human when kissed, Coraleen requires a potion to transform into a human, and Saphyria can transform into a human but it's never outright stated how. Octavia, the octopus girl, doesn't have this problem, and her sex scene is with her regular multi-tentacled form.
- Microtransactions: There is an option to make in-app purchases for Pearls. Pearls can be exchanged for rare outfits (most of which can also be bought with the free Sand Dollar currency), for instant level-ups without playing the slot machine, or for special additional characters like Talia (who are also potentially obtained for free, but require grinding for Sand Dollars).
- Naïve Everygirl: Emerelda is far less knowledgeable about humans than the game's other mer-women, wanting to know if grass is slimy like seaweed, or if ice cream is different from regular frozen water because humans add dirt to it.
- Naughty Nurse Outfit: Miya, Lisa, and Octavia can obtain this type of outfit, with the latter two literally called "Naughty Nurse" in-game.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: The base cast features three traditional mermaids, one of which can magically transform into a human upon being kissed, as well as one octopus-girl. Post-launch updates added Madison Medusozoa the jellyfish girl, and Ashera Thresher the shark girl gang leader.
- Playboy Bunny: Some girls have outfits consisting of a skimpy leotard, pantyhose, and bunny ears, such as Claudia, Ami, and Lisa's Bun Bun Fun, Ami's Naughty Bun Bun Fun and Claudia's Bad Bad Bunny (skimpier variants of Bun Bun Fun), and Octavia's Violet Heart Bunny.
- Production Throwback: Some outfits are based on AGL Studios' previous work Faulty Apprentice, such as the Patreon supporter-exclusive "New Guard Uniform" outfit for Lisa
. Additionally, Eleanna, one of the love interests from Faulty Apprentice, was added to this game in the November 2022 update. - Shark Man: Ashera, added in a post-launch update, is a shark girl gang leader with fins, rows of sharp teeth, and functional legs.
- Shout-Out:
- Some of the outfits available for the girls are references to other media, such as Ami's Angry Transfer Student, Prototype Fiber Uniform, and AVA Pilot Suit, Claudia's 2G and Lusty 2G, Lisa's Shady Crypt Raider, Miya's Slave Princess Miya and Lady Miyascurus, Octavia's Bae Valentine, and Madison's Mystery Hunter.
- Ami's room, seen in her final date event, has posters that are blatantly for Cardcaptor Sakura and Persona 3.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Miya, Ami's mother, initially came to the beach in order to reignite romance with her husband, but said husband is negligent and only focused on trying to sell beachfront property. By the end of her relationship events, Miya is taking a call from him while in the process of cheating on him with the protagonist, and the husband only cares about if she's talked the protagonist into buying a timeshare.
- Theme Naming:
- The three mermaids Emerelda, Saphyria, and Coraleen all have names that match the color of their hair.
- The names of A-mi and her mother Miy-a consist of the same syllables, just flipped.
- Unlockable Content: At the start of the game, only Lisa is available to interact with. The other girls become available after casting your fishing net (using the slot machine) enough times to level it up to certain milestones, by repeatedly interacting with other girls (such as Miya being unlocked by reaching Ami's first date scene), or by spending Sand Dollars or Pearls at Saphyria's shop.
- Virgin Sacrifice: In Miya's Halloween-exclusive story, a demon trapped in the form of a witch's hat attempts to force her and the protagonist into making love in a graveyard as part of a ritual to possess the firstborn of a virgin and gain great power, only to learn afterwards that Miya is a mom that hasn't been a virgin for years.
- Walking Swimsuit Scene: Although you can alter their regular costumes, the dating events always depict Lisa in her lifeguard one-piece and Miya in a skimpy white bikini she tried and failed to attract her husband's attention with.
- Windmill Crusader: Ami is a self-proclaimed activist that accuses the fisherman protagonist of dolphin murder when they first meet, and doesn't understand why sharks keep trying to attack her while she's swimming in the middle of open water with a protest sign advocating for shark rights.
