As any significant honors show draws close, you'll find a clamor for the addition fresh award types to honor overlooked contributions and satisfy the hearts of fans dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague made the case supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. The same goes for board games, this being someone's personal cause. However, I must insist for pushing forward because like all dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification for why my demand remains most pressing above others. This is the request: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and it will always start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason movie academies avoid this approach. But it is a necessary evil in the world of video games, which are so diverse they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
Leading game ceremonies presently include award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these award types successfully include numerous genres, allowing placement for numerous titles.
Not so for logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, each quite distinct: building puzzles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. Which classification works among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games released every year that have no home at major award shows, except when they manage to fit award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game received no recognition for anything that year
- Another creative title missed out in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked that year
- Limited numbers of puzzle games managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent small games, yet the craft behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most engaged experiences worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. It would be easy to populate five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers are working at the challenging frontier interactive creation, producing among the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay decades.
