Each time a prominent honors show nears, one notices a demand for the addition additional classifications to honor unsung work and delight the spirits of followers with niche passions.
My colleague has already made supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. So would tabletop games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize because like all single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request is the most urgent and important of all. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and it will always generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason movie academies steer clear of genre categories. But it is a necessary evil for the industry of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories effectively encompass numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
Not so for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears to put them. Think about these recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: the architectural riddles from a specific release, intense tile-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. Which classification works among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- Another imaginative release missed out in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored that year
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're small games, but the art behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences worldwide continuing this trend for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators are working at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Just like film action specialists, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay generations.
