Whenever a major honors show approaches, one notices a clamor to include additional classifications to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and fill the passions of followers who have specialized interests.
My colleague has already made for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are tabletop games, representing someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward just as with other single-minded supporters, I possess a compelling case for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. The demand is this: We need a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and it will always start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason film award organizations don’t do it. However, it represents a necessary evil in the world of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these classifications covering Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these six categories actually cover numerous genres, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Consider three of this year’s best games, all very different: structural challenges from a specific release, intense tile-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges in another game. Which classification works within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers published annually without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated in any category during that awards season
- A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
- A beloved organization game got ignored that year
- Only a few logic titles managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're small games, but the art behind logic titles is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles stand as the most-played games globally continuing this trend for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges famous sandbox experiences competing to become most purchased experience; it also contends for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. It would be easy to populate five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories in important events. Puzzle game makers operate at the hard edge game development, developing some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
