Most indie devs know this pain: if your game isn’t wrapped in a shiny .exe or playable in a browser, people scroll right past it. The moment they see “Install Python + Pygame first,” it’s over. Instant drop-off.
But here’s the thing — source-based or script-run games are often where the real creativity happens. These projects are raw, open, and transparent. You can see the code, peek behind the curtain, learn something, or even mod it. They’re the closest thing to sharing your craft directly with the player.
Yet instead of appreciation, script games get treated like homework. People want “one-click play,” even if it means ignoring entire genres of cool experimental stuff. It’s wild how someone will install 30GB for a AAA title but won’t install a 30MB Python environment for an indie game made with actual passion.
Not every dev has the resources, the time, or the hardware to package a full build. Not everyone can make WebAssembly or Unity exports. Sometimes you just want to share what you made, in the language you built it in, without jumping through hoops.
Source-based games deserve more love. They’re the backbone of learning, jamming, experimenting, and getting into game dev in the first place. We hype “support indies” all the time — this is one of the most authentic forms of indie there is.
So yeah: shoutout to the devs shipping .py files, to the folks using Pygame or Godot scripts, to anyone dropping zip folders full of code and hoping at least one person runs it anyway. You’re keeping the spirit alive.
