Each time a prominent honors show draws close, one notices a clamor for the addition fresh award types to honor unsung work and delight the passions of fans dedicated to specific genres.
Another commentator has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. Equally deserving are board games, this being someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front just as with other single-minded supporters, I possess a compelling case for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and typically start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil within the realm of video games, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards presently include classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these classifications successfully include many game types, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
Not so for puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Consider three of this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles in a particular game, intense tile-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. What category would fit them within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- Another creative title was excluded during that ceremony
- Popular arranging title was overlooked recently
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent compact experiences, however the design in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Well-known matching games stand as most engaged experiences globally continuing this trend for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals famous sandbox experiences competing to become most purchased experience; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. One could readily select multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these are games without proper classification in important events. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
