Each time a prominent awards ceremony draws close, you'll find a demand for introducing additional classifications to recognize unsung work and satisfy the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer has already made for a horror game category. That would rule. The same goes for tabletop games, which is someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward since similar to blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification backing this proposal remains most pressing and significant. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that film award organizations don’t do it. But it is an unavoidable compromise in the world of gaming, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these classifications successfully include many game types, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
Not so for logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, each quite distinct: the architectural riddles from a specific release, intense tile-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Which classification works within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition for anything that year
- A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
- Popular arranging title was overlooked in 2021
- Limited numbers of puzzle games managed to sneak into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often modest productions, yet the craft in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Well-known matching games rank among most popular titles globally continuing this trend for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it also contends as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. It would be easy to populate five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these represent titles that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers function at the challenging frontier game development, producing among essential manifestations of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait 35 years.
