Each time a prominent honors show nears, you'll find a clamor for introducing of new categories to recognize unsung work and fill the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.
Another commentator has already made supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are board games, this being someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward because like all blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification for why my demand remains most pressing and important of all. The demand is this: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and typically spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why movie academies don’t do it. But it is an unavoidable compromise within the realm of video games, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
Leading game ceremonies presently include award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these classifications actually cover numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to put them. Think about these outstanding current releases, all very different: structural challenges in a particular game, intense tile-matching in a different title, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, if they accidentally match award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything that year
- Another imaginative release missed out that year
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked recently
- Only a few brain-teasers managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often compact experiences, yet the craft of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as the most-played games worldwide and have been for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges popular creative games claiming status as most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. It would be easy to populate a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.
Restating the point, these include experiences that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers are working at the hard edge interactive creation, producing among the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait 35 years.
