Ratings and Reviews by MathBrush

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.

This game is similar to the first Frenetic Five game. In both games, you have to complete a sequence of tedious tasks using super powers. You are improv man, who uses random items in random ways; there is Clapper, who can find nearby objects by clapping (good for clues); Lexicon, who can find new words (and new commands for you to use); newsboy, who can telepathically read the news and other printed sources; and pastiche, who can do whatever the situation demands (including phasing through material).

Like the last game, the puzzles suffer from having to guess exactly the real thing to do. Out of 20 possible solutions, only 2 or 3 will be implemented. For instance, to (Spoiler - click to show)get a quarter, why can't pastiche help grab one out of someone's purse?.

This game was nominated for Best NPC's and Best Individual Puzzle in the XYZZY Awards.

In this game, you walk around a literal "small world". You are a giant that can grab things from space, get shot at by missiles and not care, and do other giant things. The world is not spinning, so some parts are perpetually hot, some perpetually cold and dark.

The game is packed with tiny details, and a blending of big and small. The writing is plain but descriptive.

The puzzles are a mixed bag. It's mostly "guess the author's brain", which is easy to do some of the time and hard other times. The world is so small that you can just try everything on everyone and it will work out.

This game was nominated for many XYZZY's, and won best setting.

This game contains six or so cycling scenes that all tell the story of a single moment in a war. That moment is when an Islamic man rushes towards a soldier.

The voices all have their own ideas about what you should do; your buddies, your uncle, your diversity trainer.

As you play, you unlock some more verbs you can use. Each page has a picture from a FPS in the Middle East, with a red or green bar. You can change all bars to green eventually, but I wasn't able to unlock anything.

This game has strong profanity, and depicts a PTSD-inducing type scenario. I'm told there is audio, but I haven't tried it.

In this relatively short game set inside your house, you wander about trying to deal with your clothing that has come to life. You have to subdue and wear each piece to win.

The clothing acts like NPCs, and are pretty amusing. The puzzles are light and I finished in 15 minutes.

The story is simple, the puzzles are simple, the writing is plain, but the game concept and execution is a lot of fun.

Short fun game.

Edit:
I changed my scoring system after I gave my original 2 star review. My new system uses these criteria:

Polished: I encountered no bugs and only a few whitespace issues.
Descriptiveness: It's a little spare but is packed with jokes.
Emotion: It is funny, if a bit silly.
Interactivity: I found the puzzles satisfying.
Would I play again? Probably not. I didn't think of it until a commenter reminded me.

This beautiful web-based game (made with Vorple) tells the story of an omnipotent being who is alone and comes into contact with ordinary beings, before a more significant encounter.

The text shifts and changes on a white and black screen, with background decorations and smooth panning of screens.

The game, as others have said, seems to save the responses of previous players, and integrates them into the current game.

It's so short that you could play it 2 or 3 times in 15 minutes. Recommended.

In this web-based game, you have a house (whose address is 18 Cadence) with a map with 5 rooms and you have a year that varies from 1900 to 2000. As you change the year, the description of each room varies. You can take portions of the text out (represented as cutting it out with a knife), and lay it on a table below. As you cut out different pieces, you can arrange them all to form a story, even overlapping some to form a new sentence.

I wasn't super impressed with the cutout system as I played, but afterwards, I saw someone's story using 'Browse' and I realized that I hadn't been very creative.

The story of the succession of people and the changing quality of the neighborhood was really interesting. I know a house near where I live that was constructed in the late 1800's, and it has gone through a life cycle very similar to that of 18 Cadence.

If you try it, try browsing some stories.