Whenever a prominent honors show nears, you'll find an outcry for introducing additional classifications to recognize underappreciated efforts and satisfy the passions of enthusiasts with niche passions.
My colleague has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. So would tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. However, I must insist if I try to elbow in front because like all single-minded supporters, I possess a compelling case backing this proposal stands as crucial and important of all. This is the request: We need a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it remains highly personal, and typically generate discussions and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that movie academies steer clear of genre categories. But it is an unavoidable compromise for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse they hardly constitute a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies currently feature award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types successfully include numerous genres, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, each quite distinct: building puzzles from a specific release, intense tile-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens outstanding logic titles released every year that have no home in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
- Another creative title missed out that year
- A beloved organization game was overlooked recently
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers barely qualified for niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often modest productions, but the art of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as the most-played games in the world maintaining this status for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title rivals popular creative games for the title of highest-selling title ever; it also contends as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. You could fill five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these include experiences without proper classification in important events. Puzzle game makers function at the challenging frontier of video game design, creating some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Just like film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
