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Introduction
I was originally linked to The Window by a friend, who insisted I absolutely had to see it. See it I did, and playtest it I have. The following breaks down what I thought of the game. Your own mileage may vary, of course.

Appearance

The Good: The Window's PDF (which is the version I chose to review) is cleanly laid out, with a nice-looking font for the main text. A nicely put together table of contents made flipping through the 42 page book very quick and painless. Paragraphs are easy to read and well layed out, and there's no big distractions to get in the way of the text. A solid job, here.

The Bad: There is one main problem I had with The Window's layout... that being that there was a LOT of wasted space. I'd calculate that on a good number of pages, only a quarter or so of the page was given over to actual text. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but as The Window's PDF contains NO artwork, this means that the rest of that space is filled with either a solid white, grey, or black tone. Not a huge issue, but one which did bother me.

The Crunchy Bits

The Good: The Window’s system is nice and uncomplicated. Characters roll their die versus a target number of six or less, and if they succeed, whatever they’re trying succeeds. Characters have Traits and Skills, both of which are rated from a d4 (superhuman) to d30 (horrible) (which is assumed to be the default for any skill). If a task is decidedly difficult, or very easy, it can be assigned a lower or higher difficulty. Contested rolls are handled by comparing the difference between two rolls, the winner’s gap with the loser signifying how wide a margin he won by.

The Bad: First of all, the game uses a d30, which immediately puts me deep into the “What the hell?” territory. I have a d30, but of all my gaming friends, I’m the only one... And I got mine more as a fun little novelty item, since The Window is the only game which I’ve ever played that uses it. The game could have easily defaulted to the d20, or some other standard* die type instead of going the extra step to the d30. Another problem is that during character creation, characters are expected to define their character by using descriptions… but then it immediately gives guidelines for which descriptions can be used for which die size. The purpose of this is for people to be able to understand a character sheet without knowing The Window’s system… Which is rather pointless. I’m not complaining about the practice of using adjectives instead of numbers to describe an attribute, but when many adjectives apply to the same “level” of an attribute and you’re required to write down the numbers anyways, writing down the adjectives is an excersize in pointlessness… “That time could be better spent roleplaying!”

*When I use the word standard, I’m defining it according to the die you can get in thedie tubes sold at every FLGS: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20.

The Fluffy Bits

The Good: The Window has some clearly good writing, and actively seeks to encourage the roleplaying aspect of the hobby. Setting detail for any sort of play is not covered in the book, but since this is just a generic system, ala Gurps, Halo, or [insert free generic RPG system here], this is fine. A nod is made to the examples written in the game, which clear up any possible mistakes in the rules… Which there should not be, given the simplicity of the system itself.

The Bad: I didn’t like the tone the game took towards more mechanically-edged systems. This is a personal point, and your own mileage may vary, but at times I was almost insulted with the sneering tone the game took. In fact, I’ll quote what The Window is described as, on the first page of it’s actual text, it’s described as “a roleplaying system designed with the simple belief that roleplaying is about story and character and not about dice and dick waving.”

Not that I’m a rabid, Senzar-fanboy or anything, but the tone strikes me as sort of offensive. It automatically assumes that any complex system is designed with the sole purpose of munchkinism in mind, not detailing things in a better, and more concrete manner. This strikes me as a poor way to market the game, and presents a sort of “Us versus Them” mentality to the rules versus fluff debate. As someone who plays on both sides of the fence, I must admit I disliked this about the game.

Additionally, it declares, right off, that the system is useless to new roleplayers… and then proceeds to give a lengthy dissertation on the state of roleplaying from The Window’s perspective, and then defines many roleplaying terms in a clear and concise manner. Given the game’s simplicity and unstructured format, I would actually see The Window as ideal for starting players… but that’s just me.

Finally, I’d like to call to your attention that The Window gleefully follows the annoying renaming trend found in many new RPGs, free or not. While it doesn’t go so far as to completely relabel everything in an attempt to be “not-D&D”, it does, for no other reason than to be different, rename the universally accepted Gamemaster to “Storyteller”, Player to “Actor”, Party to “Troupe” or “Cast”, Adventure to “Chapter” or “Act”, and Campaign to “Book”. While this is entirely the author’s choice, I feel that doing so just creates confusion. Why go out of your way to redefine terms which have been used in hundreds, if not thousands of products already?

Conclusion

Style: 3 (Average) The game’s layout, while functional, is bland and filled with far too many open spaces for it’s own good. While this sole problem might normally not drag the score down so far, a lack of ANY interesting visual eye-candy makes this piece barely average in the Style department. It’s average, and presents itself as such.

Substance: 3 (Average) The system, while nice and easy to play, is rather simple for my own tastes, and the inclusion of the d30 complicates things for newer players. I’m sure I’m not the only one who doesn’t have a FLGS handy which sells d30s. Aside from that, the sneering tone the game takes towards other, more crunchy games… strikes me as unprofessional, to say the least. All in all, the system is average… nothing more, nothing less.