Each time a major prize-giving event draws close, there’s always a demand for the addition of new categories to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the passions of followers dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, which is someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward since similar to blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification for why my demand remains most pressing and significant. The demand is this: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and typically generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil within the realm of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards offer these genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types successfully include many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Consider three of this year’s best games, all very different: building puzzles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Which classification works within current classifications? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition in any category in 2014
- Another creative title missed out during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked that year
- Only a few puzzle games managed to sneak into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're small games, however the design in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games rank among the most-played games globally maintaining this status for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges famous sandbox experiences claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, while interacting with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. 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 numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these include experiences without proper classification at major gaming awards. Logic title developers operate at the demanding boundary game development, creating some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Just like cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
