Whenever a prominent prize-giving event approaches, there’s always a clamor for introducing of new categories to honor underappreciated efforts and delight the hearts of fans with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize since similar to dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case supporting my request is the most urgent and important of all. This is the request: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and it will always start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents a necessary evil for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse they hardly constitute one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies presently include genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories successfully include a lot of ground, and you can find room for numerous titles.
Not so for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Think about these recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens outstanding logic titles published annually that have no home in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- Another imaginative release was excluded in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Just some logic titles scraped into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often compact experiences, however the design behind logic titles is of massive significance. Well-known matching games stand as most popular titles in the world maintaining this status for many years.
The famous puzzle experience rivals popular creative games competing to become most purchased experience; it additionally competes for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these include experiences without proper classification in important events. Puzzle game makers function at the demanding boundary game development, creating some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Just like movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
