As any major honors show approaches, one notices an outcry for introducing fresh award types to honor overlooked contributions and fill the spirits of fans with niche passions.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. It would be amazing. So would tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward since similar to blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification supporting my request is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Classifying creative works isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and inevitably spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. But it is a necessary evil for the industry of video games, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards currently feature genre categories for Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these award types effectively encompass many game types, and you can find room for numerous titles.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens outstanding logic titles released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated in any category that year
- Another imaginative release was excluded that year
- Popular arranging title got ignored recently
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often compact experiences, however the design of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as the most-played games worldwide maintaining this status for many years.
The famous puzzle experience competes with well-known building titles competing to become most purchased experience; it also contends as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these are games that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers are working at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Comparable to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait generations.
