As any prominent awards ceremony draws close, you'll find an outcry for introducing fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the spirits of fans with niche passions.
My colleague has already made for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, which is someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case for why my demand is the most urgent above others. Here's the proposal: There should be an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and typically start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains a necessary evil within the realm of gaming, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types successfully include numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to put them. Consider three of outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: structural challenges of one title, intense tile-matching in a different title, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. What category would fit them between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers launched regularly without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition for anything during that awards season
- Another imaginative release was excluded that year
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored that year
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often modest productions, yet the craft in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among most popular titles globally maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals popular creative games for the title of most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and engaging with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. One could readily select multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these include experiences that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers function at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of essential manifestations within interactive entertainment. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait generations.
