Each time a major honors show draws close, there’s always an outcry to include additional classifications to honor unsung work and delight the passions of enthusiasts with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. The same goes for board games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize because like all single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand remains most pressing above others. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil for the industry of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
Leading game ceremonies presently include genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these six categories successfully include a lot of ground, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
Not so for logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Consider three of this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly without proper recognition in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition in any category during that awards season
- Another creative title received no nominations that year
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often small games, yet the craft behind logic titles is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most popular titles worldwide continuing this trend for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience challenges famous sandbox experiences competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. One could readily select multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
Restating the point, these represent titles without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers operate at the challenging frontier game development, producing among the purest expressions of gaming itself. Comparable to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
