As any significant awards ceremony draws close, you'll find a demand for the addition of new categories to recognize underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of enthusiasts with niche passions.
A fellow writer has already made for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are tabletop games, which is a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward because like all single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand remains most pressing and important of all. This is the request: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and inevitably spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason movie academies steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents a necessary evil in the world of video games, which are so diverse they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories effectively encompass a lot of ground, making space possible for numerous titles.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Think about these recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles in a particular game, intense tile-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Where could they possibly go within current classifications? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens outstanding logic titles released every year without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game received no recognition for anything that year
- Another imaginative release missed out that year
- A beloved organization game got ignored that year
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent small games, but the art in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Well-known matching games stand as most popular titles in the world continuing this trend for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals popular creative games for the title of highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. You could fill multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories in important events. Puzzle game makers are working at the hard edge of video game design, creating some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
