Whenever a major awards ceremony draws close, you'll find a demand for the addition fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the passions of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.
Another commentator has already made supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. The same goes for tabletop games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize since similar to single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand is the most urgent above others. The demand is this: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; it’s very subjective, and typically spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason movie academies avoid this approach. However, it represents a necessary evil for the industry of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards currently feature genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories actually cover many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, each quite distinct: structural challenges from a specific release, intense tile-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games released every year lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game received no nominations in 2019
- A beloved organization game got ignored recently
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent compact experiences, however the design of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among most engaged experiences in the world maintaining this status for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with famous sandbox experiences competing to become highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. It would be easy to populate a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these are games that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers operate at the demanding boundary interactive creation, developing some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
