Whenever a significant honors show nears, there’s always an outcry for introducing fresh award types to recognize unsung work and satisfy the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, representing someone's personal cause. However, I must insist for pushing forward just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand is the most urgent and significant. The demand is this: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and typically start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents a necessary evil in the world of video games, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these classifications successfully include numerous genres, allowing placement for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Where could they possibly go within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens outstanding logic titles published annually that have no home in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition completely in 2014
- A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Limited numbers of logic titles managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent small games, yet the craft behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most popular titles in the world and have been for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with famous sandbox experiences claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these are games lacking appropriate categories in important events. Logic title developers are working at the hard edge of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Similar to movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait generations.
