As any prominent awards ceremony nears, one notices a clamor for the addition fresh award types to recognize underappreciated efforts and delight the passions of fans with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. That would rule. So would strategy board titles, which is a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize because like all single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal stands as crucial and important of all. This is the request: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and it will always start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason movie academies steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse they barely qualify one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
Leading game ceremonies currently feature award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these six categories successfully include a lot of ground, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to put them. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens outstanding logic titles published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
- Another imaginative release missed out that year
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Limited numbers of logic titles scraped into independent or mobile categories
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent modest productions, but the art of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles stand as most popular titles in the world continuing this trend for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title rivals well-known building titles competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Just like cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait generations.
