As any prominent awards ceremony approaches, you'll find a clamor for the addition fresh award types to recognize overlooked contributions and satisfy the passions of followers who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer made the case supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. So would strategy board titles, which is a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward because like all dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial above others. Here's the proposal: We need a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies steer clear of genre categories. But it is an unavoidable compromise in the world of video games, which are so diverse they barely qualify as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards offer these classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these award types actually cover a lot of ground, and you can find room for most games within them.
Not so for puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers launched regularly without proper recognition at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition completely that year
- A different innovative game received no nominations that year
- A beloved organization game was overlooked that year
- Just some logic titles scraped into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're small games, however the design behind logic titles is of massive significance. Well-known matching games rank among most engaged experiences in the world and have been for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title rivals famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it also contends as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, while interacting across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. You could fill a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these are games that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers operate at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Just like movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
