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Each time a major prize-giving event draws close, there’s always a clamor for introducing of new categories to recognize overlooked contributions and satisfy the hearts of fans with niche passions.

Another commentator made the case for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front because like all single-minded supporters, I possess a compelling case for why my demand is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: We need an award type for logic-based games.

Categorizing Game Types

Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and typically spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise for the industry of video games, which are so diverse they barely qualify one unified medium.

For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.

Existing Game Classification System

The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these classifications effectively encompass many game types, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.

This doesn't apply to puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles of one title, intense tile-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.

The Representation Problem

There are dozens excellent brain-teasers launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.

• An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition in any category in 2014
• Another imaginative release was excluded during that ceremony
• Well-received sorting experience got ignored in 2021
• Just some puzzle games scraped into independent or mobile categories

Significance of Puzzle Games

Frequently they represent compact experiences, but the art of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most engaged experiences worldwide maintaining this status for many years.

The legendary block-stacking game challenges famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.

Proposal and Rationale

Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.

And to reiterate, these include experiences without proper classification in important events. Puzzle game makers operate at the hard edge game development, developing some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.