In "Combat to Conversation," I first conduct a rhetorical analysis of representative examples of video game scholarship in order to reveal that much of digital game studies lacks the close-readings of individual games necessary to establish viable video game theory. I then provide an example of the type of close-reading that can be done -- specifically on the adventure game Indigo Prophecy -- which I argue illustrates a form of gameplaying and storytelling that resists easy classification by either ludologists or narratologists.