Whenever a significant honors show draws close, there’s always an outcry for introducing additional classifications to recognize underappreciated efforts and satisfy the passions of fans with niche passions.
My colleague has already made for a horror game category. It would be amazing. So would board games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. However, I must insist when I prioritize since similar to blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case backing this proposal stands as crucial above others. Here's the proposal: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it remains highly personal, and it will always generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains an essential concession in the world of gaming, which are so diverse they hardly constitute one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies presently include genre categories for Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these classifications effectively encompass a lot of ground, making space possible for most games within them.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Consider three of this year’s best games, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, intense tile-matching in a different title, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. Which classification works among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Many instances occur outstanding logic titles launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
- Another creative title missed out in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're small games, but the art in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as the most-played games globally continuing this trend for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience challenges popular creative games for the title of best-selling game of all time; it also contends for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, while interacting across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these are games that otherwise have no home in important events. Logic title developers are working at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Similar to film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait decades.
