Each time a significant awards ceremony approaches, you'll find a clamor to include fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and delight the spirits of followers dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. The same goes for strategy board titles, which is a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front since similar to blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request is the most urgent above others. The demand is this: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and typically start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason film award organizations avoid this approach. However, it represents an essential concession in the world of gaming, showing incredible range they barely qualify one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
Leading game ceremonies offer these classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types actually cover many game types, allowing placement for most games within them.
Different situation exists for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Consider three of this year’s best games, each quite distinct: structural challenges of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year that have no home at major award shows, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- A renowned logic title got overlooked in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game missed out during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored that year
- Only a few brain-teasers barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're modest productions, however the design in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles in the world continuing this trend for many years.
The famous puzzle experience challenges well-known building titles competing to become most purchased experience; it also contends for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these are games without proper classification at major gaming awards. Logic title developers operate at the challenging frontier game development, developing some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Comparable to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
