As any significant honors show nears, there’s always a demand to include of new categories to honor unsung work and delight the spirits of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
Another commentator made the case for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. So would strategy board titles, representing someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward because like all 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
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it’s very subjective, and it will always spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that film award organizations avoid this approach. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise for the industry of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards currently feature classifications covering Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these award types effectively encompass a lot of ground, and you can find room for most games within them.
Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: the architectural riddles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
Many instances occur excellent brain-teasers published annually lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, except when they manage to fit award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated in any category during that awards season
- A different innovative game received no nominations in 2019
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're small games, but the art in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences worldwide maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with famous sandbox experiences claiming status as most purchased experience; it also contends as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. One could readily select five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — actually, with challenge, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these represent titles without proper classification at major gaming awards. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier interactive creation, creating some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Just like film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
