As any prominent awards ceremony approaches, you'll find a demand for introducing of new categories to acknowledge overlooked contributions and satisfy the spirits of followers dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward because like all blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal stands as crucial and significant. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and inevitably generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason movie academies avoid this approach. But it is an unavoidable compromise in the world of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards offer these classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these award types successfully include many game types, making space possible for most games within them.
Not so for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Think about these this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers launched regularly lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, if they accidentally match award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked completely that year
- Another creative title received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked recently
- Just some brain-teasers scraped into independent or mobile categories
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're modest productions, however the design behind logic titles is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as the most-played games in the world maintaining this status for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges popular creative games competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. You could fill a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers are working at the hard edge interactive creation, creating some of essential manifestations within interactive entertainment. Just like film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
