Each time a significant honors show draws close, there’s always a clamor for the addition of new categories to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.
My colleague has already made supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. The same goes for strategy board titles, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize because like all blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial and important of all. The demand is this: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and typically generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason cinema institutions avoid this approach. But it is an unavoidable compromise for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies presently include classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these six categories effectively encompass a lot of ground, allowing placement for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Think about these this year’s best games, each quite distinct: structural challenges of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers published annually lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked for anything during that awards season
- Another imaginative release missed out during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game was overlooked in 2021
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're modest productions, however the design in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games stand as the most-played games globally maintaining this status for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges famous sandbox experiences for the title of best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. One could readily select five nominees interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these are games lacking appropriate categories in important events. Logic title developers operate at the demanding boundary of video game design, creating some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
