Its doesn't have to completely be a challenge or game like that. Or, if it is, you will need to read an entire body of literature for each separate person you want to get to know. When it comes to romantic relationships, the difference between every single person is on a universal magnitude, there is no way you can generally prepare. There is not a ground to stand on with these things unfortunately, there is just the predilections and desires that were instilled in you as a child, and those of every other person in the world. We are all 10 billion air-gapped black boxes of desire. Don't try to hard, just listen and be patient.
Three stages of romance: attraction, rapport, sexual contact (e.g. kissing). The process from no relationship to having a relationship happens as two people experience these three stages together. So I suppose the answer to calculating romantic compatibility lies in how smoothly those three steps can happen between two people.
The attraction part involves how well you compare to paragon of your stereotype. (e.g. What's the current stereotype of an attractive man, and how you compare to him. What's the current stereotype of an attractive woman and how well you compare to her.) The attraction only happens if the person feels they "have a chance".
Attraction alone of course is not enough. You can tell someone is attractive and hate their guts. So that's where rapport comes in.
The rapport part involves telling the other person about yourself and whether the other person can emphasise with you, and vice versa. I guess that's where the factors you mentioned come in. Often people like people who have personality traits of their parents, because that's easier to empathise with. Rapport alone makes great friends, you need attraction to create romance.
And then finally, I hope if you're thinking about this stuff you know enough about the last part...
Movies & TV shows are often instructive. The protagonist first impression sees an attractive man/woman, then they approach/get approached, and now thinks he's a dick or she's a bitch. Finally after some drama they end up alone together and tell each other about their growing up. And finally the kiss.
Here's a very relevant comic on the tangent of "quantification of romance and the idea that similarity makes for good relationships": https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk.
I like this story. It reminded to a video I saw the other day talking about how the romantic love from literature has shaped our expectations. I also believe finding the perfect person is really hard. However working on the relationship and overcoming difficulties is what really brings couples closer. At least I see it that way with my wife.
The choice of who to be with romantically is often dependent on some sort of sexual attraction, which is notoriously hard to change. This goes for both men and women obviously.
For the same reasons, if you want to understand why relationships are hard and what is really going on between people,
The Mystery Method by Mystery - About half is a real down-to-the bits theory of love and attraction. The other half is advice about how to pick up dates at bars. I only wanted the first part, but both are fascinating. After reading this, it's like the veil was lifted and I could see the fnords.
The Game by Neil Strauss - The story of field research into practical romance by a great writer and a peek at the author of the first book above. The author masters seductive romance and discovers that it is not the same as love. In the end, though, he needed the first to have a chance at the second.
Once you accept that love and romance are hard and not free, these two books are a start at finding and building a quality relationship. Of course, you'll have to ignore that they market themselves as manuals on how to avoid one.
I thought the same thing about Japanese games & VNs when I read
> Think about it. When modelling a conversation between two people, there’s a limited number of variables in play. How much do they like each other, and in what way? Given a few basic ways of manipulating the interaction, how does that change the relationship? These are all simple systems to simulate, so much so that we have a long history of unimaginative, sappy romance games made by genre-obsessed, cookie-cutter developers. Physical positioning can be pre-scripted, movements can be automated, and emotions are a well-understood programming domain.
That's good, though. Other people enjoy it, you don't. There's nobody forcing you and yet you still try to understand it. Maybe one day you will.
Personally, it's not all the way it's cut out in this article, but the article hits on some of the key points. If you play your cards right, there's still romance of the traditional kind too, but it takes planning, surprises, and commitment to pull it off.
It seems to require a patience I don't have. I'm not a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino-esque articles that follow multiple unrelated paths to an eventual tangential relationship.
This reminds me of how long it took me to notice a pattern in my relationships. When I look back, it's so obvious that I was picking a certain kind of person, and behaving in a certain kind of way, that would lead to the same conclusion. But it didn't feel like I was repeating the same story over and over again just to satisfy some malformed part of my psyche. I can't rewire something so deep in me that even effects who I'm attracted to. All I can do is be aware of it, and course correct.
It helps that we have a somewhat automated system for determining if we like someone in a romantic way. But this system only really works in real life.
In my dating experience, having interests that matched on paper never correlated with a successful relationship. Often it's a red herring that leads you to try and make something out of nothing. The girl you fall for despite having nothing in common is often the keeper, because the only reason you would fall for her is that there is great chemistry.
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