As any prominent honors show draws close, there’s always a demand for introducing of new categories to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of enthusiasts with niche passions.
A fellow writer made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize just as with other blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification supporting my request remains most pressing above others. Here's the proposal: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and inevitably spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason film award organizations avoid this approach. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Existing Game Classification System
Leading game ceremonies offer these genre categories for Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types effectively encompass many game types, making space possible for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Think about these this year’s best games, all very different: building puzzles of one title, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers published annually lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- Another imaginative release was excluded that year
- Popular arranging title was overlooked that year
- Limited numbers of logic titles managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often modest productions, however the design in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games rank among most popular titles worldwide and have been for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with well-known building titles claiming status as most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and engaging across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these are games that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers are working at the demanding boundary game development, creating some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
