Whenever a major honors show draws close, there’s always a clamor for the addition fresh award types to acknowledge unsung work and delight the passions of followers who have specialized interests.
My colleague has already made supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front since similar to blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal is the most urgent above others. The demand is this: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and inevitably start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that film award organizations avoid this approach. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise in the world of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these six categories effectively encompass many game types, making space possible for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Think about these recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles from a specific release, intense tile-matching in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles published annually lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, if they accidentally match award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
Frequently they represent compact experiences, but the art in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles rank among the most-played games worldwide and have been for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals famous sandbox experiences competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, and engaging across multiple categories.
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. One could readily select a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — actually, with challenge, since numerous excellent so many good games out.
Restating the point, these include experiences without proper classification at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators operate at the demanding boundary game development, developing some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Similar to film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait decades.
Maya Chen is a seasoned gaming journalist with over a decade of experience covering video game releases and industry trends.