As any major awards ceremony approaches, there’s always an outcry for the addition fresh award types to honor overlooked contributions and delight the hearts of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. The same goes for tabletop games, which is a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward since similar to dedicated enthusiasts, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal remains most pressing above others. Here's the proposal: There should be an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and it will always spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains an essential concession for the industry of gaming, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
Leading game ceremonies offer these award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these award types successfully include a lot of ground, making space possible for numerous titles.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked for anything in 2014
- A different innovative game received no nominations in 2019
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment recently
- Limited numbers of logic titles managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent modest productions, but the art behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most popular titles globally maintaining this status for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. One could readily select multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers operate at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Comparable to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
