Whenever a major honors show draws close, there’s always a clamor to include additional classifications to recognize underappreciated efforts and satisfy the passions of enthusiasts with niche passions.
Another commentator has already made supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. The same goes for strategy board titles, which is someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward because like all dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification supporting my request remains most pressing above others. This is the request: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and it will always start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise within the realm of gaming, which are so diverse they hardly constitute a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards presently include genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these six categories successfully include a lot of ground, making space possible for most games within them.
Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, all very different: structural challenges from a specific release, intense tile-matching in a different title, engaging interpersonal challenges in another game. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games published annually that have no home at major award shows, if they accidentally match award groups including Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated completely during that awards season
- Another creative title was excluded in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment that year
- Limited numbers of logic titles barely qualified for niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent small games, yet the craft behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles stand as the most-played games in the world continuing this trend for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with popular creative games for the title of best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers function at the challenging frontier of video game design, creating some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Just like movie stunt professionals, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait 35 years.
