Each time a significant prize-giving event draws close, there’s always an outcry to include additional classifications to honor overlooked contributions and delight the hearts of followers with niche passions.
Another commentator made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are board games, this being someone's personal cause. However, I must insist for pushing forward just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal stands as crucial above others. The demand is this: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it’s very subjective, and inevitably start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that cinema institutions don’t do it. But it is a necessary evil for the industry of gaming, which are so diverse they barely qualify a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies presently include classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories successfully include a lot of ground, allowing placement for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, all very different: the architectural riddles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. Which classification works between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers released every year that have no home at major award shows, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- A different innovative game received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment that year
- Limited numbers of puzzle games scraped into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often small games, however the design of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games stand as most popular titles in the world and have been for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges famous sandbox experiences competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these are games without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers are working at the challenging frontier interactive creation, producing among most fundamental forms of the video game form. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait 35 years.
