[MUD-Dev] Cognitively Interesting Combat (keyword: archetypes)

[Eric Random]

Initially, when I saw cognitively interesting combat, I did not
think it would be a discussion on the degrees of cognitive
challenge, or at what degree of cognitive challenge does a game
become "fun". Although that's highly interesting, it's an abyss I'm
hesitant to explore to reach a destination given the original topic,
but that's me. Fun may be more a matter of preference, and such
discussion, I fear, could devolve into, symbolically, which color is
more pretty and why. I would certainly agree that meandering can
still lead one to a destination, just perhaps not the originally
intended destination, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

When attempting to design something which is representative of a
real construct, like a person, a car, a computer, a fantasy world, I
break the construct down into its archetypal elements. This is,
initially, what I first perceived as the term "cognitively
interesting". What exactly is the archetype for the construct of
"combat", and what does the human brain find cognitively interesting
about it? Why is combat even in games? So players can solve puzzles? 
So players can entertain their minds when games like Chess, Go,
Tic-Tac-Toe, or even Keno, are not available to them?

There is something specifically cognitively interesting about the
construct "combat" which interests players and developers so much
they attempt to simulate and contextualize it in a game. I think
it's more important to look at "combat" than it is to look at
"game". Start with archetypal properties of "combat" than abstract
it into "game".  Puzzle Pirates, to me, is "puzzles" abstracted into
"combat", not the other way around. What is so contextually
interesting about combat, that one would use it to make solving
puzzles more entertaining? These, perhaps, are questions to explore
making battle systems better.
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev