Each time a prominent awards ceremony nears, one notices an outcry to include of new categories to honor underappreciated efforts and delight the hearts of followers with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. The same goes for tabletop games, which is a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist if I try to elbow in front just as with other single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification backing this proposal remains most pressing and significant. Here's the proposal: There should be a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and it will always start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. But it is a necessary evil for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards offer these genre categories for Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories actually cover many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Consider three of this year’s best games, all very different: building puzzles of one title, intense tile-matching in a different title, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. Where could they possibly go within current classifications? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game missed out that year
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers scraped into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent compact experiences, yet the craft behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most engaged experiences worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with popular creative games for the title of best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these are games that otherwise have no home in important events. Brain-teaser creators are working at the hard edge game development, developing some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.
