As any prominent awards ceremony draws close, there’s always a clamor for the addition of new categories to acknowledge unsung work and satisfy the passions of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, representing someone's personal cause. However, I must insist for pushing forward because like all single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it remains highly personal, and inevitably start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains an essential concession within the realm of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
Leading game ceremonies offer these classifications covering Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these classifications effectively encompass a lot of ground, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: structural challenges of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
Many instances occur of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match classification types such as Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated in any category during that awards season
- A different innovative game missed out during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored in 2021
- Just some puzzle games barely qualified for niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often modest productions, yet the craft in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games rank among most popular titles worldwide maintaining this status for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games for the title of best-selling game of all time; it also contends for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and engaging with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. One could readily select five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these represent titles without proper classification at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers operate at the demanding boundary of video game design, creating some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Just like film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
