Each time a significant awards ceremony approaches, one notices a clamor for the addition fresh award types to recognize underappreciated efforts and fill the spirits of fans who have specialized interests.
My colleague has already made supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. Equally deserving are tabletop games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand remains most pressing above others. The demand is this: We need a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and it will always start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains an essential concession in the world of gaming, showing incredible range they hardly constitute a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these classifications covering Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types actually cover many game types, making space possible for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: structural challenges in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Which classification works between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers launched regularly that have no home during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game was excluded that year
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked in 2021
- Only a few logic titles managed to sneak into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often compact experiences, but the art in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles stand as most engaged experiences worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with popular creative games for the title of most purchased experience; it also contends for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. You could fill multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these include experiences without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers are working at the hard edge interactive creation, developing some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
