Personally, I subscribe to the Spring Thing’s definition of IF , the main point being that the game must still be playable/recognizable when everything but the text is removed (like most novels are still themselves when reduced to plain text). I’d argue that Bitsy games aren’t IF under these criteria.
I think the Alice example overlooks something. Lewis Carrol did not illustrate the book (or, now that I look it up, he did some early illustrations that have been replaced, and the book has been reillustrated several times). But anyway, let’s say that Alice is the same work even if it has no pictures.
By contrast I’m not sure whether I would consider The Cat in the Hat the same work if it had no pictures. I think Dr. Seuss’ illustrations are integral to the work for no other reason than the fact that he is the author.
At the same time, if Dr. Seuss or his estate deliberately published The Cat in the Hat’s original text-only manuscript I would be more likely to consider it the same work.
Applying this to Bitsy, I’d be likely to consider a plan text transcript or hypertext transcript of a Bitsy game “the same work” as the original Bitsy game if the author created it or approved of it…even if something is lost in the format shift.
(To take this further, I think that most people would consider a reillustrated version of The Cat in the Hat a different work even if it had the same text. I think most people consider remixed work original now? I know I do. That’s not really relevant here though I guess.)