As any significant awards ceremony approaches, you'll find a clamor to include fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and delight the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, representing someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request stands as crucial and important of all. This is the request: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and it will always start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that film award organizations avoid this approach. Yet it remains an essential concession for the industry of video games, showing incredible range they hardly constitute one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
Leading game ceremonies currently feature classifications covering Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications successfully include a lot of ground, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Consider three of this year’s best games, all very different: the architectural riddles of one title, intense tile-matching in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. What category would fit them within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles launched regularly without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked completely during that awards season
- A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
- Popular arranging title got ignored that year
- Just some puzzle games managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most engaged experiences worldwide and have been for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience competes with famous sandbox experiences claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it also contends as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, while interacting across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. It would be easy to populate five nominees interesting, varied, worthy titles every year with ease — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
Restating the point, these are games that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers function at the hard edge of video game design, creating some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay decades.
