Tetris Wouldn't Win at This Gaming Ceremony — A New Category Might Solve This
As any prominent awards ceremony nears, you'll find a clamor for the addition of new categories to recognize overlooked contributions and delight the spirits of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.
Another commentator has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification backing this proposal is the most urgent above others. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and it will always spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why movie academies avoid this approach. But it is an essential concession in the world of video games, showing incredible range they barely qualify a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include classifications covering Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types successfully include a lot of ground, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to put them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges of one title, intense tile-matching in a different title, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. What category would fit them within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens outstanding logic titles published annually without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated completely during that awards season
- A different innovative game received no nominations that year
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Only a few logic titles managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences in the world maintaining this status for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience rivals popular creative games for the title of best-selling game of all time; it also contends for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, and engaging across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. It would be easy to populate a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these are games lacking appropriate categories in important events. Brain-teaser creators are working at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.