🔗 Share this article

Whenever a significant awards ceremony approaches, you'll find an outcry to include additional classifications to honor overlooked contributions and fill the spirits of fans with niche passions.

A fellow writer previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. The same goes for tabletop games, which is a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case supporting my request is the most urgent and significant. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.

The Genre Classification Challenge

Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it’s very subjective, and inevitably generate discussions resulting in unclear classifications. This explains why movie academies steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse they barely qualify one unified medium.

For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.

Current Gaming Award Categories

Leading game ceremonies currently feature award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories successfully include numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.

Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, all very different: the architectural riddles in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.

Acknowledgment Issues

Many instances occur outstanding logic titles published annually without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.

• One classic puzzle game got overlooked completely in 2014
• Another creative title received no nominations in 2019
• Well-received sorting experience got ignored in 2021
• Limited numbers of brain-teasers barely qualified for niche award types

Value of Brain-Teasers

Commonly they're small games, yet the craft of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as the most-played games globally and have been for over a decade.

The iconic tile-matching title competes with popular creative games for the title of most purchased experience; it also contends as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, while interacting across multiple categories.

The Solution and Justification

Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. One could readily select a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.

Restating the point, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories in important events. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among essential manifestations of the video game form. Comparable to film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay decades.