As any significant honors show approaches, one notices a clamor to include additional classifications to recognize underappreciated efforts and satisfy the passions of fans with niche passions.
My colleague made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. The same goes for tabletop games, which is someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case for why my demand is the most urgent and important of all. This is the request: We need a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and typically generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason film award organizations avoid this approach. But it is an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse they hardly constitute one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these classifications effectively encompass a lot of ground, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to put them. Consider three of this year’s best games, all very different: building puzzles from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. What category would fit them within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition completely during that awards season
- Another imaginative release missed out that year
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment recently
- Just some brain-teasers barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often modest productions, yet the craft in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most engaged experiences globally maintaining this status for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience challenges famous sandbox experiences claiming status as most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, while interacting with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers are working at the challenging frontier of video game design, creating some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
