As any significant honors show draws close, one notices a clamor to include fresh award types to acknowledge overlooked contributions and fill the spirits of enthusiasts with niche passions.
A fellow writer previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. The same goes for tabletop games, representing a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand remains most pressing above others. The demand is this: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of video games, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
Leading game ceremonies offer these genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories effectively encompass many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to put them. Consider three of outstanding current releases, all very different: the architectural riddles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games published annually that have no home in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
- Popular arranging title was overlooked that year
- Just some brain-teasers scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often compact experiences, however the design of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games stand as the most-played games worldwide maintaining this status for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. You could fill a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
Restating the point, these are games that otherwise have no home in important events. Logic title developers function at the hard edge interactive creation, developing some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
