As any significant honors show nears, one notices a clamor to include of new categories to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and delight the hearts of enthusiasts with niche passions.
A fellow writer made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are tabletop games, representing someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request is the most urgent above others. This is the request: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and typically spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents a necessary evil for the industry of video games, which are so diverse they barely qualify a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events currently feature award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these award types successfully include many game types, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
Not so for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Consider three of this year’s best games, all very different: building puzzles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Which classification works between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles published annually lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated in any category that year
- Another creative title received no nominations in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment that year
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often small games, however the design behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most popular titles globally continuing this trend for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games competing to become best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. One could readily select multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these represent titles that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Logic title developers are working at the hard edge of video game design, developing some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
