As any significant awards ceremony approaches, you'll find an outcry for the addition of new categories to honor unsung work and satisfy the passions of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. That would rule. Equally deserving are tabletop games, representing a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification backing this proposal stands as crucial and important of all. This is the request: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and typically spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise within the realm of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
Leading game ceremonies presently include award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these classifications effectively encompass many game types, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
Different situation exists for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears to put them. Think about these outstanding current releases, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles from a specific release, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers published annually that have no home at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition in any category in 2014
- Another creative title was excluded in 2019
- A beloved organization game got ignored recently
- Just some brain-teasers barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent compact experiences, but the art of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most popular titles in the world and have been for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience rivals well-known building titles competing to become best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. You could fill five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, since numerous excellent many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these are games that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers function at the hard edge of video game design, producing among most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Comparable to film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait generations.
