Each time a prominent prize-giving event nears, one notices a clamor to include fresh award types to recognize underappreciated efforts and satisfy the passions of enthusiasts with niche passions.
A fellow writer made the case supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. So would strategy board titles, representing someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal remains most pressing and important of all. This is the request: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and inevitably spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. This explains why film award organizations don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil within the realm of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these classifications effectively encompass many game types, and you can find room for numerous titles.
Not so for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to put them. Think about these outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. What category would fit them among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
Many instances occur excellent brain-teasers released every year that have no home during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game was excluded that year
- A beloved organization game got ignored recently
- Just some puzzle games barely qualified for niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games rank among most engaged experiences globally continuing this trend for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title rivals famous sandbox experiences for the title of highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, while interacting across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. One could readily select a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
Restating the point, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories in important events. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay decades.
