🔗 Share this article

As any prominent honors show nears, you'll find a demand for the addition fresh award types to recognize unsung work and satisfy the spirits of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.

My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. That would rule. Equally deserving are tabletop games, which is a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand stands as crucial above others. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.

Organizing Gaming Categories

Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and inevitably generate discussions resulting in unclear classifications. This explains why cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise in the world of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them 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, classification by type becomes crucial.

Present Award Structure

Leading game ceremonies offer these genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these six categories actually cover a lot of ground, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.

This doesn't apply to puzzle games. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Think about these recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Which classification works between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.

The Representation Problem

Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.

• An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked for anything during that awards season
• Another imaginative release received no nominations that year
• A beloved organization game was overlooked that year
• Only a few logic titles scraped into independent or mobile categories

Importance of Logic Titles

Frequently they represent small games, but the art behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games stand as most popular titles globally maintaining this status for over a decade.

The iconic tile-matching title challenges well-known building titles competing to become most purchased experience; it also contends as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, and engaging across multiple categories.

The Solution and Justification

Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. You could fill five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.

To emphasize again, these represent titles that otherwise have no home in important events. Brain-teaser creators are working at the demanding boundary of video game design, creating some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait generations.