Whenever a significant honors show draws close, you'll find a clamor for introducing of new categories to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of followers with niche passions.
My colleague has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. It would be amazing. So would tabletop games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front since similar to blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification supporting my request remains most pressing and important of all. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and inevitably start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise in the world of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards presently include classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these award types successfully include numerous genres, making space possible for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, all very different: the architectural riddles in a particular game, intense tile-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. Which classification works among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
Many instances occur excellent brain-teasers launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, except when they manage to fit award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game got overlooked for anything in 2014
- A different innovative game missed out during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked in 2021
- Only a few logic titles barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Importance of Logic Titles
These are often modest productions, but the art in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most popular titles globally and have been for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals famous sandbox experiences competing to become highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, and engaging across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. One could readily select a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these are games that otherwise have no home in important events. Puzzle game makers are working at the demanding boundary of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
