As any major prize-giving event nears, you'll find a clamor for introducing fresh award types to acknowledge unsung work and satisfy the hearts of followers dedicated to specific genres.
Another commentator made the case supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. Equally deserving are board games, this being someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward since similar to blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand remains most pressing and significant. This is the request: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably generate discussions resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents an essential concession within the realm of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories effectively encompass numerous genres, making space possible for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Consider three of this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games released every year lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- A renowned logic title got overlooked completely that year
- Another imaginative release missed out that year
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment that year
- Only a few brain-teasers managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're small games, but the art of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most engaged experiences globally continuing this trend for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and engaging across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators operate at the challenging frontier interactive creation, creating some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait 35 years.
