As any significant prize-giving event draws close, there’s always a demand for the addition additional classifications to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and satisfy the hearts of followers dedicated to specific genres.
A fellow writer previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. So would board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification backing this proposal remains most pressing above others. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise for the industry of gaming, showing incredible range they barely qualify a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these classifications effectively encompass numerous genres, allowing placement for most games within them.
Not so for logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, all very different: the architectural riddles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. Where could they possibly go within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers launched regularly lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked in any category that year
- Another imaginative release missed out in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked in 2021
- Just some brain-teasers scraped into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles count as most popular titles in the world maintaining this status for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. It would be easy to populate a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these include experiences that otherwise have no home in important events. Puzzle game makers are working at the hard edge of video game design, creating some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
