As any major honors show approaches, there’s always an outcry to include additional classifications to honor overlooked contributions and satisfy the passions of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
Another commentator has already made 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 if I try to elbow in front because like all dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification backing this proposal is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and typically spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason movie academies steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains a necessary evil in the world of video games, which are so diverse they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories actually cover numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Think about these recent excellent titles, all very different: the architectural riddles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges in another game. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition completely that year
- Another imaginative release received no nominations that year
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked recently
- Only a few logic titles scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent compact experiences, however the design of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among the most-played games in the world maintaining this status for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience competes with well-known building titles claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. You could fill a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.
Restating the point, these are games that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators are working at the hard edge of video game design, producing among the purest expressions of the video game form. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay generations.
