As any prominent awards ceremony draws close, one notices a clamor for the addition of new categories to honor overlooked contributions and satisfy the spirits of followers dedicated to specific genres.
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 blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. This is the request: We need a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and typically start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents a necessary evil in the world of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies offer these classifications covering Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these classifications successfully include numerous genres, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
Not so for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Think about these recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. Where could they possibly go within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers launched regularly without proper recognition in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition for anything in 2014
- Another imaginative release missed out that year
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored that year
- Only a few logic titles scraped into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent small games, yet the craft of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among most popular titles worldwide and have been for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with well-known building titles for the title of best-selling game of all time; it also contends for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and engaging across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. You could fill a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these are games lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Logic title developers operate at the hard edge game development, producing among essential manifestations of gaming itself. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay decades.
