As any significant prize-giving event approaches, you'll find a clamor for introducing fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and satisfy the hearts of fans with niche passions.
A fellow writer made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. So would tabletop games, representing someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request remains most pressing above others. The demand is this: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. This explains why cinema institutions avoid this approach. Yet it remains an essential concession for the industry of video games, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories actually cover many game types, and you can find room for most games within them.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: building puzzles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. What category would fit them between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers published annually lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- A different innovative game received no nominations in 2019
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Just some logic titles barely qualified for niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
These are often compact experiences, however the design in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most engaged experiences worldwide continuing this trend for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals popular creative games claiming status as most purchased experience; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. It would be easy to populate five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
And to reiterate, these include experiences that otherwise have no home in important events. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
