Whenever a significant awards ceremony approaches, one notices a clamor to include additional classifications to honor overlooked contributions and fill the passions of fans dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. Equally deserving are board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request is the most urgent above others. The demand is this: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and typically spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise within the realm of video games, which are so diverse they barely qualify one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards presently include genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these award types actually cover numerous genres, making space possible for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Consider three of this year’s best games, all very different: building puzzles from a specific release, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- Another creative title was excluded in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored in 2021
- Only a few brain-teasers scraped into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often small games, but the art in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles count as most engaged experiences worldwide continuing this trend for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges well-known building titles competing to become highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, and engaging across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers operate at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.
