Each time a major honors show nears, there’s always a demand for the addition fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and satisfy the hearts of fans with niche passions.
A fellow writer previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. So would board games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward because like all single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification backing this proposal remains most pressing above others. Here's the proposal: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works is not a science; it’s very subjective, and typically generate discussions resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that movie academies avoid this approach. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise in the world of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range they barely qualify as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards presently include classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types effectively encompass numerous genres, allowing placement for most games within them.
Not so for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to put them. Think about these recent excellent titles, all very different: building puzzles of one title, intense tile-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them within current classifications? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games published annually lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game received no nominations during that ceremony
- Popular arranging title received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Limited numbers of logic titles scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're compact experiences, yet the craft behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences worldwide maintaining this status for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges well-known building titles competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and engaging across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. One could readily select multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these include experiences that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers are working at the hard edge interactive creation, producing among essential manifestations of gaming itself. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait decades.
