Each time a major honors show approaches, you'll find a demand to include fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.
My colleague has already made for a horror game category. That would rule. So would board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward since similar to dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case backing this proposal remains most pressing and important of all. The demand is this: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and inevitably start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of video games, showing incredible range they hardly constitute one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards presently include award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications actually cover numerous genres, allowing placement for most games within them.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Consider three of this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. What category would fit them within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Acknowledgment Issues
Many instances occur of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, if they accidentally match classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything that year
- Another imaginative release was excluded during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored that year
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're small games, but the art behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as the most-played games worldwide maintaining this status for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience challenges famous sandbox experiences competing to become highest-selling title ever; it also contends for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles every year with ease — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers are working at the challenging frontier game development, developing some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Just like cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
