Each time a significant honors show nears, you'll find an outcry to include fresh award types to honor overlooked contributions and delight the passions of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
Another commentator made the case supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. The same goes for board games, representing a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front since similar to blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification for why my demand remains most pressing and important of all. The demand is this: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; it remains highly personal, and inevitably generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why cinema institutions avoid this approach. But it is an unavoidable compromise within the realm of gaming, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards offer these genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types successfully include numerous genres, and you can find room for numerous titles.
Not so for puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Consider three of this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles from a specific release, intense tile-matching in a different title, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked completely that year
- Another creative title received no nominations in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored that year
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers managed to sneak into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often small games, but the art in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as the most-played games globally maintaining this status for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience competes with well-known building titles claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it also contends as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, while interacting across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these are games without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers function at the hard edge interactive creation, creating some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
