Each time a prominent prize-giving event approaches, there’s always a clamor for introducing additional classifications to recognize underappreciated efforts and delight the passions of fans with niche passions.
A fellow writer previously argued for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are board games, which is someone's personal cause. However, I must insist for pushing forward just as with other single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification for why my demand remains most pressing and important of all. This is the request: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and inevitably spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil within the realm of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards currently feature classifications covering Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these classifications successfully include a lot of ground, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, all very different: building puzzles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. What category would fit them between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
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 Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- One classic puzzle game got overlooked completely in 2014
- A different innovative game missed out in 2019
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment recently
- Limited numbers of logic titles managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often small games, yet the craft behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most popular titles in the world and have been for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with popular creative games claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, since numerous excellent many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these are games lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers operate at the demanding boundary game development, producing among the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
