Each time a prominent awards ceremony approaches, there’s always an outcry for introducing of new categories to honor unsung work and fill the hearts of followers dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. The same goes for board games, which is someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front because like all blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification for why my demand is the most urgent and significant. This is the request: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and inevitably spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents a necessary evil within the realm of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these six categories actually cover many game types, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
Different situation exists for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, all very different: the architectural riddles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games published annually without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- Another imaginative release was excluded that year
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked that year
- Just some puzzle games scraped into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often modest productions, yet the craft of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles count as most popular titles globally maintaining this status for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience competes with popular creative games claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. You could fill a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these are games lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers are working at the challenging frontier interactive creation, creating some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Just like film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
