🔗 Share this article

Whenever a significant awards ceremony draws close, there’s always a demand for the addition of new categories to recognize underappreciated efforts and satisfy the hearts of enthusiasts with niche passions.

A fellow writer previously argued for a horror game category. That would rule. The same goes for tabletop games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification backing this proposal stands as crucial above others. The demand is this: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.

Categorizing Game Types

Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and typically spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. But it is a necessary evil within the realm of gaming, showing incredible range they barely qualify a single creative category.

To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.

Current Gaming Award Categories

Leading game ceremonies currently feature genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these classifications actually cover numerous genres, allowing placement for most games within them.

This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to put them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: 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? Nowhere, that’s where.

The Representation Problem

Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers launched regularly lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit award groups including Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging Indie races.

• An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything that year
• Another creative title was excluded in 2019
• A beloved organization game got ignored in 2021
• Only a few brain-teasers managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories

Value of Brain-Teasers

These are often modest productions, yet the craft of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games stand as most engaged experiences in the world and have been for many years.

The famous puzzle experience competes with famous sandbox experiences claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.

Proposal and Rationale

Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.

To emphasize again, these include experiences without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers are working at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Just like movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay generations.