From this introduction I see your Kingdoms of play falling into interesting relational patterns with each other. Action and Adventure lie in a realm concerned with tactics and reactive play. Action dominates the physical and Adventure rules the mental domain. They direct the player’s focus toward the present and demand that he be awake, observant, and attentive of his environment.

Role Playing Games and Strategy expand in temporal scope to explore the extrapolations of the player’s actions. They address the player’s ability to conceive possible futures and bend the game world to his will. Role Playing Games leverage the player’s empathic abilities and theory of mind to bring them into the lives of an imagined world’s characters. Strategy games develop the player’s facility for the analytical deconstruction of an environment to find the critical points where the application of agency enables transformation.

Each of these genres takes a unique position to address the issues of time, environment, agency, emotion, tactics, strategy, and the physical and mental experience of games. I’m excited to read your explorations into each individual super-genre and to see what patterns you form between the setting, character, player, and play style and if my initial interpretation of the forces behind these genres lines up with yours or if I’m completely off base.