Each time a prominent awards ceremony nears, you'll find a clamor to include of new categories to recognize unsung work and fill the spirits of fans dedicated to specific genres.
A fellow writer made the case for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are tabletop games, which is someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand remains most pressing and important of all. The demand is this: There should be an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and it will always start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise in the world of gaming, which are so diverse they hardly constitute a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these classifications successfully include many game types, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Consider three of outstanding current releases, all very different: the architectural riddles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Where could they possibly go within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers published annually that have no home during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked for anything during that awards season
- Another imaginative release was excluded during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment recently
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're small games, but the art of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among the most-played games in the world continuing this trend for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience rivals famous sandbox experiences competing to become highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. One could readily select a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these are games without proper classification at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators operate at the demanding boundary of video game design, creating some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait decades.
