SNKRX VS VVVVVV

One thing that really helped me is looking at the source code and assets of one game that I really enjoyed -- SNKRX, the creator of the game, a327ex, put everything on Github so you can take a look how a finished game looks: https://github.com/a327ex/SNKRX/. The repo even includes the various images needed for Steam, this was very nice so I could make sure some of the assets I made aren't unfit for their purpose: https://github.com/a327ex/SNKRX/tree/master/assets/media . There are also some Photoshop files provided on the Steamworks FAQ which are very useful too, but they mainly show just in which area of the image you shouldn't put important text etc.

If it helps, here's a devlog for a reasonably successful game built in love2d.

SNKRX/devlog.md : daily breakdown of what he actually worked on from the start for his SNKRX game

SNKRX daily devlog for the first 3 months << very detailed of what he was doing each day

I'm the developer of SNKRX and on top of what most other people mentioned, the truth of the matter is that making games is hard and making games while working on someone else's codebase is even harder. Anyone who has the capacity to do anything useful with your game's codebase will likely also have the capacity to make their own game from scratch, so they'll just do that instead.

SNKRX is a commercial game and is open source (MIT), but it's not an open source project -- the developer is focused on improving their game for their gaming community and not building a development community around the game.

*The Monkey's Paw curls* https://github.com/TerryCavanagh/VVVVVV

VVVVVV at least has since become open source.

VVVVVV - A platformer where you flip gravity instead of jumping. Was recently open-sourced to celebrate the game's 10th anniversary!

Yeah, just look at this beauty! https://github.com/TerryCavanagh/VVVVVV/blob/master/desktop_version/src/Game.cpp

Finally, games are really that complex. Check out for example Terry Cavanagh's blog post on releasing the source code for VVVVVV, and check out the source for Game.cpp (although keep in mind this was ported from ActionScript).

So it seems to be an unofficial policy rather than a written rule, if those allegations are true (remember that those are Wolfire's claims of what Valve said). Certainly there doesn't seem to be consistent enforcement - for instance Tales of Maj'Eyal is free, but $7 on Steam. Apparently there are some minor differences - does that mean that they can claim that it's a "separate version" and hence doesn't need price parity, even though 99.9% of the game is identical? There's also VVVVVV, which is open source (albeit years after initial commercial release) where you can freely build the exact same copy as on Steam ($5), including steamworks support. Does that count as a "separate version" when you just have to compile code? Admittedly these are two indie games, albeit extremely well-known ones, but then - isn't Wolfire Games also an indie studio?

I think it's worth noting VVVVVV has actually been open-sourced https://github.com/TerryCavanagh/VVVVVV