Each time a prominent awards ceremony approaches, there’s always an outcry for the addition of new categories to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and satisfy the spirits of followers dedicated to specific genres.
A fellow writer has already made supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. The same goes for board games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward because like all blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request is the most urgent and significant. The demand is this: We need a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and inevitably spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that film award organizations avoid this approach. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these classifications actually cover many game types, allowing placement for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to put them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers released every year without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked for anything that year
- A different innovative game received no nominations during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game was overlooked in 2021
- Only a few logic titles barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're compact experiences, yet the craft of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles stand as most engaged experiences worldwide continuing this trend for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience rivals well-known building titles for the title of best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these represent titles that otherwise have no home in important events. Logic title developers are working at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.
