Whenever a significant awards ceremony nears, there’s always a clamor for introducing additional classifications to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the spirits of enthusiasts with niche passions.
A fellow writer made the case supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. The same goes for tabletop games, which is someone's personal cause. However, I must insist if I try to elbow in front just as with other single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial above others. Here's the proposal: There should be an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and it will always spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason movie academies don’t do it. But it is an essential concession in the world of video games, showing incredible range they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
Leading game ceremonies currently feature genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories effectively encompass a lot of ground, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, each quite distinct: the architectural riddles in a particular game, intense tile-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens outstanding logic titles published annually that have no home at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked in any category that year
- Another creative title received no nominations in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked that year
- Just some logic titles scraped into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent small games, but the art in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among most popular titles globally and have been for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with well-known building titles competing to become best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, while interacting with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these include experiences without proper classification in important events. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier game development, developing some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Similar to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.
