As any major prize-giving event nears, you'll find a demand to include fresh award types to recognize underappreciated efforts and fill the passions of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague made the case supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. So would strategy board titles, representing a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front because like all single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial above others. Here's the proposal: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and it will always generate discussions and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise in the world of video games, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies presently include genre categories for Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types actually cover numerous genres, making space possible for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Which classification works between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers published annually that have no home in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition completely during that awards season
- A different innovative game was excluded during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Only a few logic titles barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often small games, yet the craft behind logic titles is of massive significance. Well-known matching games rank among the most-played games globally maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with popular creative games for the title of most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, while interacting with diverse game types.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. One could readily select multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these are games without proper classification at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers are working at the hard edge interactive creation, creating some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Comparable to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
