As any prominent prize-giving event nears, there’s always a demand for the addition of new categories to recognize unsung work and fill the spirits of fans with niche passions.
My colleague made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, which is someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward since similar to single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification supporting my request is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and it will always start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that movie academies don’t do it. But it is an essential concession in the world of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories successfully include a lot of ground, allowing placement for numerous titles.
Not so for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, each quite distinct: structural challenges in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers published annually lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match for categories like Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated in any category during that awards season
- Another creative title missed out in 2019
- A beloved organization game was overlooked recently
- Only a few logic titles scraped into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're small games, however the design in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games stand as most engaged experiences worldwide maintaining this status for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals famous sandbox experiences claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and engaging across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories in important events. Puzzle game makers function at the challenging frontier interactive creation, creating some of essential manifestations within interactive entertainment. Similar to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
