We advocate a research approach to determining the conditions of engagement in game simulation that is a multi-disciplinary cultural and scientific inquiry at the juncture of psychological, artistic, and programming perspectives. What are the factors that cause some people to become enthralled with detail-oriented simulation game-play, while others are ed by more abstracted, symbolic styles of play? How are the conditions of engagement influenced by gender, culture, and age? Keywords Research methodology, psychology of engagement, intuition, decision making, gender, culture, real world psychology and game worlds, game aesthetics, game composition, logistics of perception, synthesis of factors