Each time a major awards ceremony draws close, one notices an outcry to include additional classifications to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and delight the passions of followers with niche passions.
My colleague made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. So would tabletop games, which is a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front because like all blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works is not a science; it’s very subjective, and typically start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why movie academies steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains a necessary evil within the realm of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these award types actually cover many game types, allowing placement for most games within them.
Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Many instances occur of brilliant puzzle games released every year that have no home in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything that year
- A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked in 2021
- Only a few puzzle games managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're small games, yet the craft of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences globally maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with popular creative games claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it also contends as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. One could readily select multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories in important events. Brain-teaser creators operate at the demanding boundary game development, developing some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
