Whenever a significant awards ceremony approaches, you'll find an outcry to include fresh award types to honor unsung work and delight the spirits of fans with niche passions.
My colleague made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. The same goes for board games, representing someone's personal cause. However, I must insist for pushing forward since similar to dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. This is the request: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that cinema institutions avoid this approach. Yet it remains an essential concession in the world of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards currently feature classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these classifications effectively encompass many game types, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Consider three of outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: structural challenges in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
Many instances occur outstanding logic titles released every year that have no home during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game received no recognition completely during that awards season
- Another imaginative release received no nominations in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked in 2021
- Only a few logic titles managed to sneak into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're compact experiences, but the art behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as most engaged experiences globally and have been for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals famous sandbox experiences competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. It would be easy to populate five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers function at the demanding boundary of video game design, creating some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
