Whenever a prominent prize-giving event draws close, you'll find a demand for the addition of new categories to recognize unsung work and delight the passions of fans with niche passions.
A fellow writer has already made supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. The same goes for strategy board titles, which is someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case supporting my request remains most pressing and important of all. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and it will always spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. But it is an unavoidable compromise within the realm of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events currently feature classifications covering Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these six categories actually cover a lot of ground, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Which classification works within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens outstanding logic titles published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
- Another imaginative release missed out during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored that year
- Only a few logic titles scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
These are often small games, but the art in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among most engaged experiences globally maintaining this status for many years.
The famous puzzle experience competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, while interacting across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. It would be easy to populate a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these are games without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators are working at the hard edge interactive creation, developing some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Just like cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
