As any major honors show draws close, there’s always a demand for the addition of new categories to acknowledge unsung work and fill the passions of followers dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. The same goes for board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist for pushing forward because like all blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification for why my demand remains most pressing above others. The demand is this: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and it will always spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that movie academies avoid this approach. Yet it remains an essential concession in the world of video games, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories effectively encompass many game types, allowing placement for numerous titles.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to put them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, each quite distinct: building puzzles from a specific release, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Which classification works within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens outstanding logic titles launched regularly without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition for anything that year
- Another imaginative release received no nominations that year
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked recently
- Only a few logic titles managed to sneak into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often small games, however the design behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as most engaged experiences in the world maintaining this status for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals popular creative games for the title of highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. One could readily select multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
And to reiterate, these are games without proper classification in important events. Logic title developers operate at the demanding boundary of video game design, producing among most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
