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As any significant prize-giving event nears, there’s always a clamor for the addition fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of followers dedicated to specific genres.

A fellow writer previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward because like all blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial above others. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.

The Genre Classification Challenge

Categorizing art by genre is not a science; it’s very subjective, and typically spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason movie academies avoid this approach. But it is an unavoidable compromise in the world of video games, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.

To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.

Current Gaming Award Categories

Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories successfully include many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.

Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to put them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, all very different: structural challenges from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. What category would fit them within current classifications? Unfortunately, nowhere.

The Representation Problem

There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year that have no home at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.

• An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated in any category that year
• A different innovative game was excluded that year
• A beloved organization game was overlooked in 2021
• Limited numbers of brain-teasers barely qualified for independent or mobile categories

Significance of Puzzle Games

These are often compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most popular titles worldwide continuing this trend for an extended period.

The famous puzzle experience rivals famous sandbox experiences claiming status as most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.

Proposal and Rationale

Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. One could readily select a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.

Restating the point, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories in important events. Puzzle game makers function at the hard edge game development, creating some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.