Each time a major honors show approaches, there’s always an outcry for introducing fresh award types to recognize unsung work and delight the spirits of fans with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. That would rule. Equally deserving are tabletop games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward since similar to single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and it will always spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason movie academies don’t do it. Yet it remains an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories successfully include a lot of ground, making space possible for numerous titles.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to put them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges from a specific release, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. Which classification works within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Many instances occur excellent brain-teasers launched regularly that have no home in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- A renowned logic title got overlooked completely in 2014
- Another creative title was excluded that year
- Popular arranging title got ignored that year
- Limited numbers of puzzle games scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent compact experiences, but the art behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles count as most engaged experiences globally continuing this trend for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with popular creative games competing to become highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. One could readily select a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these are games that otherwise have no home in important events. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier of video game design, creating some of essential manifestations within interactive entertainment. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
