Each time a major awards ceremony draws close, there’s always a demand for introducing fresh award types to acknowledge unsung work and satisfy the hearts of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
Another commentator made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. So would board games, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front because like all blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case for why my demand is the most urgent above others. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works is not a science; it remains highly personal, and inevitably start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why cinema institutions avoid this approach. But it is an essential concession for the industry of video games, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types effectively encompass many game types, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
Not so for logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers published annually lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game received no recognition completely that year
- Another imaginative release missed out in 2019
- Popular arranging title got ignored in 2021
- Limited numbers of puzzle games managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're small games, but the art in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among the most-played games globally maintaining this status for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games competing to become best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, while interacting across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles every year with ease — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these are games without proper classification in important events. Puzzle game makers are working at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among essential manifestations of the video game form. Just like movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
