As any significant prize-giving event approaches, there’s always an outcry for the addition fresh award types to honor unsung work and delight the hearts of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward because like all blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification backing this proposal remains most pressing above others. The demand is this: We need an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works is not a science; it remains highly personal, and inevitably start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. This explains why cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents a necessary evil in the world of gaming, showing incredible range they hardly constitute as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these award types successfully include a lot of ground, making space possible for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to put them. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, all very different: building puzzles of one title, intense tile-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. What category would fit them within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year that have no home during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game received no recognition in any category in 2014
- Another imaginative release received no nominations that year
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked recently
- Just some puzzle games barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're small games, but the art of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among most engaged experiences worldwide maintaining this status for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals well-known building titles claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it also contends as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. One could readily select five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories in important events. Puzzle game makers are working at the demanding boundary of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Just like film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
