Whenever a major awards ceremony draws close, there’s always a demand to include of new categories to honor unsung work and fill the passions of followers who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist when I prioritize because like all blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case for why my demand remains most pressing and important of all. This is the request: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and typically generate discussions and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. But it is an unavoidable compromise within the realm of video games, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these award types successfully include many game types, and you can find room for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, all very different: the architectural riddles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. Which classification works among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games released every year lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game got overlooked for anything during that awards season
- Another imaginative release was excluded that year
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored in 2021
- Just some puzzle games managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're small games, but the art behind logic titles is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles stand as the most-played games worldwide and have been for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games for the title of most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. It would be easy to populate five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Logic title developers operate at the hard edge of video game design, developing some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Just like film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay generations.
