I think that I did not failed in my goal of finding alternatives to combat and violence.

There's actually a broad spectrum of alternatives in game design, and specially things like board games and card games.

There's more than kill or be killed victory conditions in games.
Like carry a token to another place, reach a place faster, control more territory, collect some special token or token combination, get the most points.

And there's also more ways to lose a game than being killed, like getting the less points in the end, being eliminated, being pushed outside the ring, not pressing enough buttons, a timer, etc.