ivan VS VVVVVV

Source

This one's a bit of a long shot, but it's free, and if she ends up liking it then it'll open up a whole genre that can run on integrated graphics: IVAN

IVAN (https://github.com/Attnam/ivan)

A rougelike where you can have your legs severed, pray to a god to have them regenerated and have them regenerated as bananas.

IVAN is another one that does that kind of thing, but is pretty good instead of awful. XD It's hard as hell though.

Ivan, Although it's marked on the sidebar as a popular roguelike, I have rarely ever seen anyone mention it on this sub.

Iter Vehemens ad Necem aka. IVAN - IVAN is regarded as one of the more difficult roguelike games, and is also known for innovative game design and sarcastic backgrounds. You could also check out the updated fan-variant CLIVAN which adds a lot of new content.

"I.V.A.N" (Iter Vehemens ad Necem) on github

*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