As any major honors show draws close, one notices a clamor for introducing additional classifications to honor unsung work and fill the spirits of followers with niche passions.
Another commentator has already made supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. So would tabletop games, which is a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification backing this proposal is the most urgent and significant. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and it will always start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason cinema institutions avoid this approach. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise for the industry of gaming, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies currently feature classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these award types successfully include numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, all very different: building puzzles in a particular game, intense tile-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges in another game. Which classification works between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
Many instances occur of brilliant puzzle games published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, if they accidentally match classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- Another imaginative release was excluded that year
- Popular arranging title got ignored that year
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers scraped into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're compact experiences, however the design of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences in the world maintaining this status for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience rivals famous sandbox experiences competing to become best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, while interacting across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these are games without proper classification in important events. Puzzle game makers function at the hard edge of video game design, creating some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Comparable to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.
