As any major awards ceremony nears, there’s always a clamor for introducing fresh award types to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and satisfy the passions of followers who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer has already made for a horror game category. That would rule. Equally deserving are tabletop games, which is a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize just as with other blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification supporting my request remains most pressing above others. Here's the proposal: We need a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and it will always spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why movie academies don’t do it. Yet it remains an essential concession in the world of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events currently feature classifications covering Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types successfully include many game types, allowing placement for most games within them.
Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Think about these this year’s best games, all very different: the architectural riddles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Which classification works among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens outstanding logic titles launched regularly that have no home in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked in any category in 2014
- Another imaginative release missed out during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked in 2021
- Just some brain-teasers managed to sneak into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're small games, but the art of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles count as the most-played games worldwide and have been for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. You could fill a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification at major gaming awards. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
