Whenever a major awards ceremony draws close, one notices an outcry to include fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and delight the hearts of followers dedicated to specific genres.
A fellow writer has already made for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize since similar to blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification supporting my request stands as crucial above others. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and typically start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. This explains why film award organizations don’t do it. However, it represents an essential concession within the realm of gaming, showing incredible range they barely qualify a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards currently feature genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories successfully include numerous genres, making space possible for numerous titles.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Consider three of this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. Which classification works between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens outstanding logic titles launched regularly without proper recognition at major award shows, if they accidentally match classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked completely during that awards season
- A different innovative game received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment that year
- Limited numbers of logic titles scraped into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent small games, but the art of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games rank among most popular titles in the world continuing this trend for many years.
The famous puzzle experience rivals well-known building titles for the title of best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, while interacting across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these include experiences that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers function at the demanding boundary of video game design, creating some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.
