As any major awards ceremony draws close, you'll find a clamor for the addition additional classifications to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. So would board games, representing a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist for pushing forward because like all blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand is the most urgent and important of all. This is the request: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and it will always start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason movie academies avoid this approach. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise within the realm of gaming, 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.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies offer these award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these classifications effectively encompass many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Think about these this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges in a particular game, intense tile-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. What category would fit them between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games published annually without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- One classic puzzle game received no recognition for anything that year
- Another creative title was excluded that year
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored in 2021
- Just some puzzle games scraped into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're modest productions, yet the craft in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most popular titles in the world continuing this trend for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges well-known building titles competing to become highest-selling title ever; it also contends as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. One could readily select a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators operate at the hard edge interactive creation, creating some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Just like movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait generations.
