As any major awards ceremony approaches, there’s always an outcry to include of new categories to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of followers with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are tabletop games, representing someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front since similar to blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case backing this proposal is the most urgent above others. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and typically generate discussions and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason film award organizations avoid this approach. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of gaming, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards offer these classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories effectively encompass a lot of ground, making space possible for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Consider three of this year’s best games, each quite distinct: structural challenges in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Which classification works among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles published annually lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game got overlooked in any category in 2014
- Another creative title missed out during that ceremony
- Popular arranging title got ignored recently
- Just some puzzle games barely qualified for niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're compact experiences, however the design of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games rank among the most-played games worldwide maintaining this status for many years.
The famous puzzle experience competes with popular creative games for the title of best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, while interacting with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. One could readily select a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these represent titles without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers are working at the hard edge of video game design, producing among most fundamental forms of the video game form. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay decades.
