As any prominent honors show draws close, you'll find a clamor to include of new categories to acknowledge overlooked contributions and satisfy the passions of followers who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front because like all dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification backing this proposal remains most pressing and significant. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and inevitably start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains an essential concession in the world of video games, 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 to ensure all game types to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards currently feature genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications effectively encompass a lot of ground, allowing placement for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, all very different: structural challenges of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Which classification works within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games released every year that have no home at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition for anything that year
- Another creative title received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment that year
- Limited numbers of logic titles scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often small games, however the design behind logic titles is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles stand as the most-played games globally maintaining this status for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience challenges well-known building titles competing to become highest-selling title ever; it also contends for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. You could fill five nominees interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification in important events. Brain-teaser creators function at the demanding boundary interactive creation, creating some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Just like movie stunt professionals, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay decades.
