As any major prize-giving event nears, there’s always a demand for the addition of new categories to recognize underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of fans with niche passions.
Another commentator previously argued for a horror game category. That would rule. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, which is someone's personal cause. However, I must insist if I try to elbow in front because like all blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand is the most urgent and important of all. This is the request: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and it will always generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why movie academies don’t do it. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise in the world of gaming, showing incredible range they hardly constitute as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards offer these genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types effectively encompass numerous genres, and you can find room for numerous titles.
Not so for puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these recent excellent titles, all very different: the architectural riddles in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens outstanding logic titles launched regularly lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything that year
- Another imaginative release missed out that year
- Popular arranging title was overlooked recently
- Just some puzzle games managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often compact experiences, but the art behind logic titles is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most popular titles worldwide maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with well-known building titles claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these are games that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Logic title developers function at the demanding boundary interactive creation, developing some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Just like film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait generations.