counterfeit-monkey VS VVVVVV

Counterfeit Monkey by Emily Short. https://github.com/i7/counterfeit-monkey/releases

If you don't want to install a parser on your computer, you can play it online by putting the link to the .gblorb file into https://iplayif.com/ I.e. https://iplayif.com/?story=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fi7%2Fc...

Modern games are generally going to be more approachable than old ones. Tastes have changed considerably. In the days when you couldn't pull up a walkthrough in a few seconds, taking days to think of the next step was part of the fun, and just getting permanently stuck at some point was fairly common. Also, letting the player keep going even after they have done something to make the game unwinnable is now considered very uncool. Navigation is much less tedious these days as well, fast travel for example, although the exact mechanics depend on the game.

And that's not mentioning the amount of CPU and RAM available, not only for the game's runtime, but also for tools like I7 (which was used to write Counterfeit Monkey).

For an quicker introduction to modern "interactive fiction", as it's called these days, check out competition entries. https://intfiction.org/c/competitions/7 These are generally written in a shorter amount of time and the results are quicker to play through.

Various old skool text adventures:

If you are already experienced with them then "Counterfeit Monkey" takes it to the next level with a great twist based on anagram-like magic:

> Anglophone Atlantis has been an independent nation since an April day in 1822, when a well-aimed shot from their depluralizing cannon reduced the British colonizing fleet to one ship.

> Since then, Atlantis has been the world's greatest center for linguistic manipulation, designing letter inserters, word synthesizers, the diminutive affixer, and a host of other tools for converting one thing to another. Inventors worldwide pay heavily for that technology, which is where a smuggler and industrial espionage agent such as yourself can really clean up.

> Unfortunately, the Bureau of Orthography has taken a serious interest in your activities lately. Your face has been recorded and your cover is blown.

> Your remaining assets: about eight more hours of a national holiday that's spreading the police thin; the most inconvenient damn disguise you've ever worn in your life; and one full-alphabet letter remover.

> Good luck getting off the island.

https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=aearuuxv83plclpl

https://github.com/i7/counterfeit-monkey

If you're new to the genre then "Lost Pig" is a good place to start, though technically it's licence (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0) is not open source.

*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