Each time a significant awards ceremony draws close, there’s always an outcry for the addition of new categories to honor unsung work and fill the passions of fans with niche passions.
Another commentator made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. The same goes for tabletop games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist for pushing forward just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal is the most urgent and significant. The demand is this: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and it will always spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason film award organizations don’t do it. However, it represents a necessary evil for the industry of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range they barely qualify one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies presently include award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these award types effectively encompass a lot of ground, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Consider three of outstanding current releases, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition in a different title, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. What category would fit them among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers published annually lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
- Another imaginative release missed out in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're modest productions, yet the craft in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles stand as most engaged experiences globally continuing this trend for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with well-known building titles competing to become best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. You could fill a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these include experiences that otherwise have no home in important events. Brain-teaser creators function at the demanding boundary interactive creation, creating some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
