Each time a significant awards ceremony nears, one notices an outcry to include of new categories to recognize overlooked contributions and delight the hearts of fans with niche passions.
My colleague has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are tabletop games, which is a dedicated supporter's campaign. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand is the most urgent above others. This is the request: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works is not a science; it remains highly personal, and typically generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why cinema institutions avoid this approach. Yet it remains an essential concession for the industry of gaming, showing incredible range 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 receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these six categories actually cover numerous genres, allowing placement for numerous titles.
Not so for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Consider three of recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: structural challenges from a specific release, intense tile-matching in a different title, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title got overlooked for anything in 2014
- A different innovative game missed out that year
- Popular arranging title was overlooked recently
- Only a few puzzle games scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent small games, yet the craft behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games count as the most-played games globally and have been for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with well-known building titles competing to become highest-selling title ever; it also contends for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, while interacting across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. You could fill five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.
Restating the point, these are games without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier game development, producing among most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
