As any significant awards ceremony approaches, there’s always a clamor for the addition additional classifications to honor unsung work and fill the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer has already made supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. So would tabletop games, which is a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front just as with other blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification supporting my request stands as crucial above others. This is the request: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and typically start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why movie academies steer clear of genre categories. But it is an unavoidable compromise in the world of video games, which are so diverse they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
Leading game ceremonies currently feature genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types actually cover a lot of ground, making space possible for numerous titles.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to put them. Consider three of this year’s best games, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, intense tile-matching in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. What category would fit them within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers launched regularly that have no home in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition in any category during that awards season
- A different innovative game was excluded that year
- Popular arranging title received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Just some brain-teasers scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
These are often compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles stand as the most-played games worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges famous sandbox experiences claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
