I think this thread is starting to veer into territory that has been covered by at least one other, recently… as in, what would be a “better” alternative to Cloak of Darkness… something that would cover some of the other key elements of IF. Cloak of Darkness’ focus on light/dark seem incredibly old fashioned even to someone like me who spends their time exclusively playing old text adventures!
(See threads like… Standard Demo Kit for modern IF systems?
Cloak of Darkness 2: Survey Results
Medium sized open source text adventure code? )
There’s nothing to stop you coming up with your own specification for an alternative “standard demonstration game” that might include elements like containers or NPCs. The trick is to come up with a tiny, compact game that incorporates all the key elements of a “good” IF/text adventure system whilst also having some narrative appeal to encourage others to recreate it on multiple platforms. There are plenty of clever people here, though, who could handle that challenge… So, I guess, the main obstacle might be how much of a need for a new CoD is out there? Do people really use it to help them get an idea of what systems are like?
As an aside, I think that aiming to produce a much larger demo game would be a mistake. You want something small and streamlined enough that a newcomer to a coding system can easily take in the full scope of the game code. That is one of the attractions of CoD. Any new “standard” game should be able to be replicated across the full range of systems; but most systems can cope with containers, NPCs, wearable items, item weight, etc. without getting too bloated.