Reviews by MathBrush

In this game, you are in a strict Catholic school, and you have to show how much you can rebel.

It's a sort of grungy, pimple-popping feel, sort of the way I've heard Odysseus and Catcher in the Rye described. The f*** word is sprinkled throughout, as well as a few other profanities, some teenage drinking, etc.

Basically, you have some punk friends, and you want to show everyone how punk you are by mouthing off, wearing crazy stuff, swiping things, etc.

I stopped playing partway through, because it's not my sort of thing.

This game has two parts. The first part is a smallish sci-fi area, with 2 sets of 4 rooms, each set arranged in a square, and a few simple machines.

There is then a fantasy type area, which has puzzles with multiple solutions, depending on the personality of the player.

Overall, the feel is simple but not trivial puzzles. The conversation system uses menus, and worked well for me. I didn't encounter any bugs or typos.

The game is not always innovative, but it's a solid addition to the canon. Recommended for fans of surreal games or of moral choices.

This game is a classic-style adventure game where you play as a cat. Your goal is to eat some soft food, after having had hard food for a while.

You explore your cabin and the surrounding woods, and everything is from the point of view of a feline. Cars, tv's, sofas, etc. are described from her point of view.

The game was nominated for an XYZZY for best NPC's. The NPC's include your Provider, your Rival, and a child.

Overall, recommended for fans of nonlinear exploration games with a score.

Jim Aikin is one of my favorite authors, so I was looking forward to this game. But it turned out to be a bit odd.

You play an american tourist trying to get some food at a Cafe in Paris. As you wander about the cafe, it is clear that there are some things you might try to get the waiter's attention. As you do them, the game progresses. However, the game increasingly has you do odd things that you wouldn't really think of in real life, without motivation.

The setting, a 2x3 rectangle in a cafe, is charming, with some fun NPC's (the game was nominated for an XYZZY for Best NPC's). It's really just an atmospheric game.

Recommended for fans of Paris or of restaurant games (like Gourmet or Dinner with Andre).

This game has a large, expansive world where you wander around and meet various women while a large story plays in the background about people with psycho-kinetic powers being chased by a shady organization.

There are 8 girls that you meet, and you can build up romance with any of them. If you build a romance high enough, you get a special ending.

I was unable to complete the game, as you have to select options a, b, c, or d to travel to different places, and this version of the game in Gargoyle understands 'c' as 'close', rendering me unable to select this option.

As for the sexism, here's the description of the first female lead. I'll let you decide what to think:
"The girl is clothed in a silky blue dress. Long vibrant hair cascades over her shoulders and
down her back. Her countenance seems to reflect all feminine virtue, inclusive of kindness,
empathy, and consciousness of time and place. Her deportment is modest, and there is
propriety in the way she patiently sits waiting for someone, a gallant knight to ride up and
sweep her off her feet perhaps. Certainly that cannot be the case, nor do you look anything like
a knight, but since when was there ever harm in entertaining a fanciful thought?"

Edit: After downloading Adrift 4.0, and replaying, the game was much better, with graphics and sound and no game-closing bugs.

The Frenetic Five games are a series of games involving superheros with mundane powers and usually a lot of guess-what-the-author-is-thinking puzzles. This one is no different, although it is odd in that it involves more excitement and a maze-like area.

You are Improv, with the power to make use ordinary objects in unusual ways. Your team has similar powers. You have to make your way through a series of tasks such as getting out of a house while drunk, until you get to a mine.

The mine is very different from previous Frenetic Five games. It is a homage to Zork and Adventure, with a lantern, elvish sword, trapdoor, underground maze, a dam, etc. The actions you have to take in here are so improbable as to defy belief. Also, the ending is confusing and a bit anti-climactic.

There is more real life action in this game than the previous games. The game was nominated for Best NPCs in the XYZZY's.

Transparent is a full IFComp-sized game (about 2 hours) set in an abandoned mansion. This game eschews the traditional linear format most common for horror games and adopts a 'slow-burn' instead. This didn't mesh well with the hectic format of IFComp, which may have caused it to be overlooked.

In this game, you are a photographer as part of a film crew investigating a location that is rumored to be haunted. You are provided with a map (as an in-game graphic and as a feel). You make it to the mansion, but the film crew is nowhere to be seen.

As you go about the mansion, various things happen. You have a camera you can wear around your neck, and you photograph everything. Sometimes the pictures don't turn out the way they should.

Eventually, the power goes out, but you can still see by using your flash. This often does not reveal what you want it to.

You can make your own goals in this game, and there are endings for most reasonable goals. I achieved one good ending and one bad ending, and I found the bad ending to be very appropriate, so I didn't try to fix it.

There are sounds, but my interpreter did not support them.

Finally, many , many people complained about the inventory limit, but there is nothing you need to carry for 90% of the game. Don't carry notes, leaflets, and memos, and drop keys if you're done with them (I recommend holding onto the property key).

Recommended for fans of the creepy.

Mother Loose is a shortish retelling of several nursery rhymes in a parser format. You encounter Mary and her Lamb, Humpty Dumpty, etc.

The game isn't that long. I played around for a while, getting some points, and having fun, and then peeked at the walkthrough. It turned out that I was only one puzzle away from the end, so the game is pretty short.

It also seems that there are multiple ways of solving many of the puzzles. Some of the puzzles relied on knowledge of nursery rhymes. One puzzle's solution in the walkthrough I thought was unfair, but then I looked at the hints and realized that there is a more logical alternate solution.

Recommended for those looking for PG games.

This is one of the most well-known examples of a superhero game, due to the fact that there were 3 of these games in a series (the same is true of the slightly-better-known Earth and Sky series).

You are part of a team of 5 mismatched superheros with odd powers (like one knowing the definition of every word in every language). You have to stop two villains named Sturm and Drang.

About a third of the game is getting out of your apartment, a third is getting to the villains, and a third is the climax. Each ability is used once, although I'm still not sure what the main character's ability is.

The puzzles are just an odd mismatch, and not really coherent. It's probably better to use a walkthrough and see the whole thing.

In this mid-length game, you play a detective investigating the murder of a movies star.

Most of the game involves driving to various locations, getting out, looking around, and talking to people. It's generally pretty clear what to talk about for the first half. In the last half, you have to start solving puzzles, and it gets down into 'guess what the author is thinking' territory.

The NPCs have a variety of topics, and some can follow you, and they can lie, bluff, react to various things, etc.

Recommended for detective story fans.