Combat in text base games

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In Silent Gear the author does something different with the way he designed combat in his game. Basically every turn you get to choose to put one point in defense and one in offence. If you attack where the enemy is not defending you damage the enemy and vice versa. I found it an interesting concept but personally i did not like it as it seemed out of theme and very random based.

In most other text based games you choose an action and then you read about how that went. For example in the beginning of Silent Gear you are fighting in hand to hand. You are given a choice of how you attack (hook or jab) and how you defend (sway to the left sway to the right). I personally don’t enjoy this method either as once you played through this you know before hand what to do.

Do you guys have any preferences or ideas how text based games should go about combat. Is there anything you personally want to see? Or do you believe combat in text based games should be something more than just fighting? Like you could be taking to the person your fighting to demoralize them. Maybe your trying to motivate yourself and your contemplating the hard choices you’ve had to make and this fight is paralleling your thoughts?

Either way guys what do you think?

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Yes. Other types of game architecture work better for randomised fighting. In a text game, I’ve seen a couple of things work satisfyingly: combat as stats-based puzzle (e.g. Blogia in Sabres of Infinity) and combat as an occasion for revealing character (do you choose to be brutal, clever, cowardly etc. in this fight). And of course the two are often combined.

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