As any significant honors show approaches, there’s always an outcry to include of new categories to recognize underappreciated efforts and satisfy the hearts of followers who have specialized interests.
A fellow writer made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are tabletop games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward just as with other blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification supporting my request is the most urgent above others. The demand is this: We need a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and inevitably spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents a necessary evil within the realm of gaming, which are so diverse they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories effectively encompass a lot of ground, and you can find room for most games within them.
Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to put them. Consider three of outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: the architectural riddles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year that have no home in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition completely in 2014
- Another imaginative release missed out during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked that year
- Only a few logic titles managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Importance of Logic Titles
These are often small games, yet the craft of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most engaged experiences globally continuing this trend for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it also contends for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. It would be easy to populate a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these represent titles without proper classification in important events. Brain-teaser creators operate at the demanding boundary of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Similar to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.