Whenever a prominent awards ceremony approaches, there’s always a demand for the addition fresh award types to recognize overlooked contributions and fill the spirits of followers who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer made the case for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, this being someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize because like all single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal remains most pressing above others. This is the request: We need a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and it will always start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that cinema institutions avoid this approach. But it is an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range they barely qualify one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these classifications actually cover a lot of ground, allowing placement for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles launched regularly that have no home during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked in any category during that awards season
- Another imaginative release was excluded during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game got ignored in 2021
- Only a few logic titles managed to sneak into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
These are often compact experiences, however the design behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most engaged experiences in the world maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals popular creative games for the title of best-selling game of all time; it also contends for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and engaging across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. You could fill multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators function at the demanding boundary of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Similar to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.
