Each time a prominent awards ceremony approaches, one notices an outcry for the addition fresh award types to recognize overlooked contributions and satisfy the hearts of fans 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, representing someone's personal cause. However, I must insist when I prioritize just as with other blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification backing this proposal is the most urgent and important of all. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works is not a science; it remains highly personal, and it will always spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of gaming, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types effectively encompass a lot of ground, allowing placement for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Which classification works among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers released every year that have no home during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title got overlooked completely in 2014
- A different innovative game missed out during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game got ignored in 2021
- Only a few logic titles scraped into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
These are often small games, yet the craft in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles globally continuing this trend for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges well-known building titles for the title of highest-selling title ever; it also contends as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. It would be easy to populate five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these include experiences that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers are working at the hard edge of video game design, producing among most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Just like film action specialists, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
