Lost in Lualand

I'd argue that more mechanical games, the good ones, also operate off of that sense of delight and discovery. They hand you some basic rules, you're like "ok cool", and then they throw you challenges where you're forced to deepen your understanding of how the game follows from those rules. Or they show you creative nuances in the rules via the opponents they throw you.

Imo metagames for fighting games develop very similar to the hack-offs you describe. Someone comes up with a smart way of fighting; other player needs to devise a way to break it.