As any major prize-giving event approaches, there’s always an outcry to include additional classifications to honor overlooked contributions and delight the spirits of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. It would be amazing. The same goes for strategy board titles, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. However, I must insist for pushing forward because like all single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification for why my demand is the most urgent and significant. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and typically generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise within the realm of gaming, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these award types actually cover numerous genres, and you can find room for numerous titles.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to put them. Consider three of outstanding current releases, all very different: structural challenges of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Which classification works between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly without proper recognition at major award shows, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- Another imaginative release missed out in 2019
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment that year
- Only a few puzzle games scraped into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent small games, however the design behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as most engaged experiences globally continuing this trend for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience rivals popular creative games competing to become best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, and engaging across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.
Restating the point, these include experiences without proper classification at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers function at the hard edge game development, creating some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
