Each time a significant awards ceremony nears, you'll find a demand for introducing additional classifications to recognize unsung work and delight the spirits of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. So would tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand is the most urgent above others. The demand is this: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that cinema institutions avoid this approach. But it is a necessary evil within the realm of video games, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
Leading game ceremonies offer these classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these six categories effectively encompass numerous genres, making space possible for numerous titles.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, each quite distinct: the architectural riddles in a particular game, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. What category would fit them among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers released every year that have no home at major award shows, if they accidentally match award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated completely during that awards season
- A different innovative game was excluded that year
- A beloved organization game was overlooked that year
- Only a few brain-teasers barely qualified for niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often modest productions, but the art behind logic titles is of massive significance. Well-known matching games count as the most-played games worldwide continuing this trend for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges popular creative games claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. It would be easy to populate a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these include experiences without proper classification at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers function at the challenging frontier of video game design, creating some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Just like film action specialists, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay decades.
