Whenever a significant honors show approaches, one notices a clamor for introducing fresh award types to honor unsung work and delight the hearts of fans with niche passions.
My colleague has already made for a horror game category. It would be amazing. So would tabletop games, which is a dedicated supporter's campaign. However, I must insist for pushing forward just as with other single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request stands as crucial and significant. This is the request: There should be a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason film award organizations avoid this approach. Yet it remains an essential concession in the world of gaming, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
Leading game ceremonies offer these genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these classifications actually cover a lot of ground, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles in a particular game, intense tile-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Which classification works within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Many instances occur excellent brain-teasers published annually without proper recognition in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated completely during that awards season
- Another creative title received no nominations during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game got ignored that year
- Just some logic titles barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often modest productions, yet the craft in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as the most-played games globally maintaining this status for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title rivals popular creative games competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, while interacting across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. One could readily select multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories in important events. Puzzle game makers function at the demanding boundary of video game design, developing some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Just like film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait generations.
