Whenever a significant awards ceremony nears, you'll find an outcry for introducing fresh award types to honor unsung work and fill the passions of enthusiasts with niche passions.
A fellow writer previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, which is someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification for why my demand remains most pressing and significant. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and typically start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. This explains why film award organizations avoid this approach. But it is a necessary evil in the world of video games, which are so diverse they barely qualify a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards presently include award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these six categories effectively encompass a lot of ground, making space possible for numerous titles.
Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, all very different: building puzzles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. Which classification works within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition in any category during that awards season
- Another imaginative release missed out during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game was overlooked that year
- Only a few puzzle games managed to sneak into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent small games, but the art in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles count as the most-played games in the world maintaining this status for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games 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 within interactive entertainment, and engaging across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. You could fill five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories in important events. Puzzle game makers are working at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among essential manifestations within interactive entertainment. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
