Not a programmer.  Will be reading and doing exercises from a book on C this summer, then starting university this fall.  I like roguelikes, but I dislike how all roguelikes quickly become way to complex to quickly and easily modify.

I know how to use terminal commands (cd, ls, make, grep if I have a guide handy), I know how to read and follow instructions, I run Linux (granted it's Mint Debian), I've screwed around with other roguelikes in the past.  I have a good idea of how to use grep to puzzle through code, but the codebases of most roguelikes are way too huge to easily make something fun.  It quickly becomes a chore, where I must document all occurances of something-or-other using grep, then figure out how they work and comment them, then write a spreadsheet with all my changes I plan to make and update it as I make changes.  It seriously sucks the fun right out of it.

I want code mixed with data because I'm easily confused when I have to edit stuff in JSONs and in the *.c and *.h files too.  I'd rather keep it on one place.

I initially tried a bunch of very old games, but I couldn't get them to compile.  I'm happy with something very old as long as it compiles, is small, isn't too buggy, source is available, and it runs on linux.  Ideally I want something that is CLI, written in C or C++, and keeps the data and code together.

EDIT

How long until the captcha is no longer mandatory?