Each time a major prize-giving event nears, you'll find an outcry for the addition fresh award types to recognize overlooked contributions and satisfy the spirits of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.
A fellow writer made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are tabletop games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. The demand is this: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and inevitably spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that film award organizations avoid this approach. But it is an unavoidable compromise for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
Leading game ceremonies currently feature award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these award types effectively encompass a lot of ground, and you can find room for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, all very different: the architectural riddles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. Which classification works 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, if they accidentally match for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated completely that year
- Another creative title was excluded in 2019
- A beloved organization game got ignored that year
- Limited numbers of logic titles scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent small games, but the art in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most popular titles globally maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals famous sandbox experiences for the title of highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these are games that otherwise have no home in important events. Brain-teaser creators operate at the hard edge of video game design, developing some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait generations.
