Whenever a major prize-giving event approaches, you'll find an outcry for the addition of new categories to honor underappreciated efforts and delight the hearts of enthusiasts with niche passions.
A fellow writer has already made supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. The same goes for board games, representing someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize just as with other blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification backing this proposal remains most pressing and important of all. The demand is this: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; it remains highly personal, and it will always spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise within the realm of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards offer these genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types actually cover a lot of ground, allowing placement for numerous titles.
Different situation exists for puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Think about these outstanding current releases, all very different: structural challenges from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers published annually that have no home at major award shows, except when they manage to fit for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game got overlooked completely that year
- Another creative title was excluded in 2019
- Popular arranging title received no acknowledgment recently
- Only a few puzzle games managed to sneak into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often small games, but the art behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles stand as most engaged experiences globally continuing this trend for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title rivals popular creative games competing to become best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, since numerous excellent many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these are games without proper classification in important events. Logic title developers operate at the demanding boundary of video game design, producing among essential manifestations of the video game form. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay generations.
