As any significant honors show draws close, one notices an outcry for introducing fresh award types to recognize overlooked contributions and satisfy the passions of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer has already made supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. The same goes for board games, representing a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward since similar to blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. Here's the proposal: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it remains highly personal, and typically start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that film award organizations avoid this approach. Yet it remains an essential concession within the realm of video games, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards offer these genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications successfully include numerous genres, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to put them. Consider three of this year’s best games, all very different: structural challenges in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, engaging interpersonal challenges in another game. Where could they possibly go within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens outstanding logic titles released every year that have no home in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked for anything in 2014
- Another creative title was excluded in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored recently
- Just some brain-teasers managed to sneak into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent compact experiences, but the art in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among most engaged experiences in the world maintaining this status for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with well-known building titles claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it also contends for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles every year with ease — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these include experiences that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators are working at the demanding boundary interactive creation, producing among the purest expressions of the video game form. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait 35 years.
