As any prominent honors show draws close, one notices an outcry for introducing fresh award types to recognize overlooked contributions and delight the spirits of followers who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer made the case for a horror game category. It would be amazing. The same goes for tabletop games, which is a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front since similar to blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case supporting my request remains most pressing above others. Here's the proposal: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why film award organizations avoid this approach. But it is an essential concession in the world of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events currently feature genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these award types successfully include numerous genres, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Think about these this year’s best games, all very different: building puzzles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. What category would fit them within current classifications? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers released every year lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, if they accidentally match for categories like Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked for anything that year
- Another imaginative release missed out during that ceremony
- Popular arranging title got ignored recently
- Just some logic titles barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're small games, however the design in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as the most-played games globally continuing this trend for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it additionally competes for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. You could fill five nominees 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 that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers are working at the hard edge of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
