Whenever a significant awards ceremony nears, there’s always a clamor for the addition additional classifications to recognize overlooked contributions and fill the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer previously argued for a horror game category. That would rule. The same goes for board games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward since similar to single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal stands as crucial and significant. The demand is this: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and it will always start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise within the realm of video games, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies offer these genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these classifications effectively encompass numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
Not so for puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, all very different: building puzzles in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- Another creative title missed out during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game got ignored that year
- Limited numbers of logic titles scraped into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent small games, however the design in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Well-known matching games stand as most popular titles in the world continuing this trend for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with famous sandbox experiences competing to become highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. One could readily select five nominees interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, since numerous excellent many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Logic title developers operate at the demanding boundary game development, creating some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Comparable to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
