As any major honors show approaches, you'll find a clamor to include additional classifications to recognize overlooked contributions and fill the spirits of followers with niche passions.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. It would be amazing. The same goes for board games, this being 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 stands as crucial and significant. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it’s very subjective, and it will always generate discussions resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. But it is an unavoidable compromise within the realm of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these award types effectively encompass many game types, making space possible for most games within them.
Not so for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears to put them. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. Which classification works among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games released every year that have no home at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- Another imaginative release was excluded that year
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored recently
- Limited numbers of puzzle games managed to sneak into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're compact experiences, but the art in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among the most-played games globally continuing this trend for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges famous sandbox experiences competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. You could fill multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, since numerous excellent many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these include experiences that otherwise have no home in important events. Logic title developers operate at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
