As any significant honors show nears, you'll find an outcry for introducing fresh award types to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and fill the spirits of fans with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are tabletop games, representing someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front because like all single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial above others. Here's the proposal: There should be an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Classifying creative works isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and typically spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that cinema institutions avoid this approach. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise in the world of gaming, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these six categories effectively encompass numerous genres, allowing placement for most games within them.
Different situation exists for puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, all very different: the architectural riddles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. What category would fit them within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition for anything that year
- A different innovative game missed out that year
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers scraped into independent or mobile categories
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent modest productions, however the design behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games count as the most-played games in the world maintaining this status for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title rivals famous sandbox experiences competing to become highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and engaging with diverse game types.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. It would be easy to populate five nominees interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these represent titles that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators operate at the hard edge game development, creating some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait 35 years.
