Whenever a prominent prize-giving event draws close, you'll find a demand for introducing additional classifications to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and satisfy the spirits of fans with niche passions.
A fellow writer previously argued supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. So would strategy board titles, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case backing this proposal remains most pressing and important of all. This is the request: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. 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 it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types actually cover many game types, and you can find room for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: building puzzles in a particular game, intense tile-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges in another game. What category would fit them within current classifications? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated completely during that awards season
- Another imaginative release was excluded that year
- A beloved organization game got ignored that year
- Just some brain-teasers managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often modest productions, yet the craft of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles count as most engaged experiences globally and have been for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges well-known building titles for the title of most purchased experience; it also contends for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
