Whenever a major awards ceremony draws close, there’s always a clamor to include fresh award types to honor overlooked contributions and delight the hearts of fans with niche passions.
A fellow writer previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. So would strategy board titles, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. The demand is this: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and it will always spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason film award organizations avoid this approach. Yet it remains an essential concession in the world of video games, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards presently include genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these award types effectively encompass a lot of ground, allowing placement for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to put them. Think about these recent excellent titles, all very different: building puzzles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. What category would fit them within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens outstanding logic titles launched regularly that have no home during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match for categories like Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition in any category that year
- A different innovative game missed out in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked that year
- Only a few brain-teasers managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often modest productions, but the art behind logic titles is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most popular titles globally continuing this trend for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with popular creative games for the title of most purchased experience; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these include experiences that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators are working at the hard edge game development, producing among the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Just like movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
