As any major awards ceremony draws close, one notices a demand for introducing fresh award types to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and satisfy the spirits of enthusiasts with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. The same goes for tabletop games, representing a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward just as with other single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification supporting my request remains most pressing above others. Here's the proposal: There should be an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and it will always spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains a necessary evil in the world of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range they barely qualify as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories effectively encompass a lot of ground, allowing placement for most games within them.
Different situation exists for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to put them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Which classification works among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers released every year that have no home during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
- A different innovative game received no nominations during that ceremony
- Popular arranging title got ignored in 2021
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers scraped into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often small games, yet the craft of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Well-known matching games rank among the most-played games globally maintaining this status for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience rivals well-known building titles claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, while interacting with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. It would be easy to populate a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these include experiences without proper classification in important events. Logic title developers operate at the hard edge interactive creation, developing some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
