Whenever a significant honors show draws close, you'll find a clamor for the addition additional classifications to honor unsung work and fill the passions of fans who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. Equally deserving are board games, this being someone's personal cause. However, I must insist for pushing forward just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it remains highly personal, and inevitably generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why film award organizations don’t do it. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise for the industry of gaming, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards currently feature genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these award types successfully include many game types, allowing placement for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. Which classification works between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition completely that year
- A different innovative game missed out during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Only a few logic titles barely qualified for niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
These are often compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles worldwide continuing this trend for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title rivals famous sandbox experiences competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. You could fill multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these are games that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Logic title developers function at the hard edge game development, producing among most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Similar to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.
