As any prominent prize-giving event approaches, there’s always an outcry to include fresh award types to recognize underappreciated efforts and satisfy the hearts of followers with niche passions.
A fellow writer has already made for a horror game category. That would rule. So would strategy board titles, which is someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize just as with other blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification for why my demand is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it remains highly personal, and it will always spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains an essential concession within the realm of video games, showing incredible range they barely qualify as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards presently include award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories actually cover a lot of ground, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Consider three of outstanding current releases, all very different: the architectural riddles in a particular game, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game received no recognition for anything during that awards season
- Another imaginative release received no nominations in 2019
- Popular arranging title received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Just some brain-teasers barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent modest productions, yet the craft of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles stand as most popular titles worldwide maintaining this status for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. One could readily select multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these represent titles that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers function at the hard edge interactive creation, developing some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait 35 years.
