As any major honors show draws close, one notices an outcry for the addition additional classifications to honor unsung work and delight the spirits of followers who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, representing someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front since similar to single-minded supporters, I possess a compelling case supporting my request is the most urgent and important of all. The demand is this: We need a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Classifying creative works is not a science; it remains highly personal, and inevitably spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason movie academies don’t do it. But it is a necessary evil in the world of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these classifications actually cover a lot of ground, and you can find room for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Which classification works among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
Many instances occur outstanding logic titles published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game got overlooked in any category during that awards season
- A different innovative game was excluded that year
- Popular arranging title received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Only a few brain-teasers barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Well-known matching games count as the most-played games worldwide maintaining this status for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges well-known building titles for the title of most purchased experience; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. It would be easy to populate a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories in important events. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier of video game design, creating some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
