How do you make combat interesting in interactive fiction ?

[Dissolved]

How to not make combat just a case of “choose strongest move” recently:

@Dissolved

For IF in general—albeit probably not Kerkerkruip—could you not use story as an incentive? That is, branch based on the rough pattern of attacks used so that if the player wants to see all of the story, then they have a motivation to not rely on just the strongest attacks across all playthroughs.

But back to the specific concerns of the post.

@Qianyixia

where the battles feel cinematic and I can visualize everything that’s happening

Are these battles individual or mass combat?

@Qianyixia

That might work in a visual game

It wouldn’t work in a visual game, though. If a visual game just had health bars and maybe an attack choice dialog, that wouldn’t be particularly engaging.

@Qianyixia

So how do you make text-based combat come alive?

Presumably by writing engaging text for attacks and damage? Yes, that’s generic and very much in the category of “easy for [me] to say”, but I’m not sure there’s a mechanical panacea to this? Any combat system can be done well and any combat system can be done badly.