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The Iconic Puzzle Game Wouldn't Win at This Gaming Ceremony — A New Category May Address This Issue

Each time a prominent honors show draws close, you'll find a demand for introducing fresh award types to recognize underappreciated efforts and satisfy the passions of fans dedicated to specific genres.

A fellow writer has already made supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. So would board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist if I try to elbow in front because like all single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification backing this proposal stands as crucial and important of all. This is the request: We need a classification for brain-teasing titles.

Categorizing Game Types

Categorizing art by genre is not a science; it remains highly personal, and it will always generate discussions resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that film award organizations don’t do it. But it is an essential concession for the industry of video games, showing incredible range they hardly constitute one unified medium.

For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.

Current Gaming Award Categories

The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these award types actually cover a lot of ground, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.

Different situation exists for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. Where could they possibly go within current classifications? Unfortunately, nowhere.

Acknowledgment Issues

Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers released every year lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive Indie races.

  • A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated completely that year
  • Another imaginative release received no nominations in 2019
  • A beloved organization game got ignored recently
  • Just some brain-teasers managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications

Significance of Puzzle Games

Commonly they're compact experiences, however the design of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Well-known matching games count as the most-played games worldwide 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’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.

Proposal and Rationale

Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.

To emphasize again, these represent titles without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers operate at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.

CW
The writer

Corey Wiggins

A tech journalist and digital strategist with over a decade of experience covering emerging technologies and consumer electronics.

OnyxZone UK

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