🔗 Share this article

Each time a major awards ceremony approaches, there’s always an outcry for introducing fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.

My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. However, I must insist when I prioritize since similar to dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification for why my demand is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.

The Genre Classification Challenge

Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it’s very subjective, and typically generate discussions and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason movie academies steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains a necessary evil within the realm of gaming, which are so diverse they barely qualify one unified medium.

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.

Current Gaming Award Categories

Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these six categories effectively encompass numerous genres, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.

Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Consider three of outstanding current releases, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges of one title, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.

The Representation Problem

There are dozens outstanding logic titles launched regularly lacking appropriate categories at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.

• An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition for anything that year
• Another imaginative release missed out in 2019
• Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
• Just some brain-teasers scraped into small studio or handheld classifications

Importance of Logic Titles

Frequently they represent compact experiences, yet the craft behind logic titles is of massive significance. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles worldwide maintaining this status for an extended period.

The legendary block-stacking game rivals popular creative games claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, while interacting across multiple categories.

The Solution and Justification

Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. One could readily select a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.

To emphasize again, these are games that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers are working at the demanding boundary interactive creation, creating some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.