As any significant awards ceremony nears, you'll find a clamor to include of new categories to honor unsung work and satisfy the passions of followers dedicated to specific genres.
A fellow writer made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. The same goes for board games, this being someone's personal cause. However, I must insist when I prioritize since similar to blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request stands as crucial and important of all. Here's the proposal: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Classifying creative works isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and typically spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains an essential concession within the realm of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
Leading game ceremonies presently include award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories effectively encompass a lot of ground, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, each quite distinct: building puzzles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, except when they manage to fit award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked recently
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers barely qualified for niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're small games, yet the craft behind logic titles is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most popular titles worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience rivals well-known building titles claiming status as most purchased experience; it also contends for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these represent titles without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers function at the demanding boundary of video game design, producing among the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
