🔗 Share this article

As any significant honors show approaches, one notices an outcry for introducing of new categories to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.

Another commentator has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. It would be amazing. The same goes for board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward because like all single-minded supporters, I possess a compelling case supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. Here's the proposal: There should be a category for puzzle games.

Organizing Gaming Categories

Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and it will always generate discussions and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason film award organizations don’t do it. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise for the industry of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range they hardly constitute one unified medium.

To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.

Current Gaming Award Categories

Prominent interactive entertainment events currently feature award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications successfully include numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.

Not so for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: structural challenges from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.

Acknowledgment Issues

There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested independent game categories.

• One classic puzzle game received no recognition in any category in 2014
• A different innovative game missed out during that ceremony
• A beloved organization game got ignored in 2021
• Limited numbers of brain-teasers scraped into niche award types

Value of Brain-Teasers

Commonly they're small games, yet the craft of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences in the world and have been for over a decade.

The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, 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 with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — actually, with challenge, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.

And to reiterate, these include experiences without proper classification in important events. Logic title developers function at the hard edge of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay decades.