As any prominent honors show nears, you'll find a clamor for the addition additional classifications to acknowledge unsung work and satisfy the passions of followers dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague previously argued supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. The same goes for strategy board titles, representing a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist for pushing forward since similar to single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification for why my demand is the most urgent and significant. Here's the proposal: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and typically start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason movie academies don’t do it. But it is an essential concession in the world of video games, which are so diverse they barely qualify one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies offer these genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these classifications successfully include many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to put them. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles from a specific release, intense tile-matching of another game, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. Which classification works within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
- A different innovative game received no nominations that year
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Just some brain-teasers barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often compact experiences, however the design behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences in the world maintaining this status for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges well-known building titles claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. You could fill multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these represent titles that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers are working at the hard edge of video game design, developing some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
