Whenever a prominent honors show draws close, you'll find a demand for the addition fresh award types to recognize underappreciated efforts and satisfy the spirits of fans dedicated to specific genres.
Another commentator previously argued supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. However, I must insist when I prioritize because like all 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.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and it will always start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why film award organizations avoid this approach. Yet it remains an essential concession for the industry of video games, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
Leading game ceremonies presently include genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these six categories actually cover numerous genres, allowing placement for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to put them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. What category would fit them within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Many instances occur outstanding logic titles released every year lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked completely during that awards season
- A different innovative game missed out in 2019
- A beloved organization game got ignored in 2021
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often compact experiences, but the art in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games count as the most-played games in the world maintaining this status for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with popular creative games claiming status as most purchased experience; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these represent titles that otherwise have no home in important events. Brain-teaser creators are working at the demanding boundary game development, developing some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
