Each time a significant awards ceremony nears, one notices a clamor for the addition additional classifications to recognize unsung work and satisfy the spirits of followers dedicated to specific genres.
Another commentator has already made for a horror game category. It would be amazing. So would board games, representing someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand stands as crucial above others. This is the request: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and it will always generate discussions resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents a necessary evil within the realm of gaming, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards presently include genre categories for Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types successfully include many game types, and you can find room for most games within them.
Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Think about these recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers launched regularly without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit award groups including Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- A renowned logic title got overlooked completely in 2014
- A different innovative game was excluded that year
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked recently
- Only a few logic titles barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often compact experiences, however the design behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games stand as most popular titles in the world maintaining this status for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it also contends for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. One could readily select a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these are games that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators are working at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among essential manifestations of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait generations.
