As any major awards ceremony draws close, you'll find a clamor for introducing additional classifications to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of enthusiasts with niche passions.
Another commentator made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. The same goes for strategy board titles, this being a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front because like all blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand stands as crucial and important of all. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and it will always generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why movie academies don’t do it. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards presently include classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories successfully include many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Think about these this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers released every year without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated completely that year
- Another imaginative release missed out that year
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked recently
- Limited numbers of logic titles barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent compact experiences, yet the craft behind logic titles is of massive significance. Well-known matching games rank among most popular titles in the world continuing this trend for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with popular creative games claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it also contends for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. One could readily select a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers function at the demanding boundary of video game design, producing among essential manifestations of gaming itself. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
