Each time a major prize-giving event approaches, you'll find a demand for the addition of new categories to honor unsung work and delight the hearts of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague made the case supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are board games, which is a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward because like all single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification supporting my request stands as crucial and significant. The demand is this: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and typically start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents a necessary evil in the world of gaming, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these award types successfully include a lot of ground, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles of one title, intense tile-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Many instances occur outstanding logic titles published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- Another imaginative release received no nominations that year
- Popular arranging title got ignored recently
- Just some brain-teasers managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent small games, but the art of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among the most-played games worldwide continuing this trend for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges popular creative games claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, and engaging across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. One could readily select five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
And to reiterate, these are games without proper classification at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers are working at the challenging frontier interactive creation, creating some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
