We''ve seen the First-Person games.. (Doom, Unreal, Wolfenstein, Half-Life, etc.) And we''ve seen the 3rd Person games.. (Mega Man, Tomb Raider, Diablo, Grand Theft Auto, etc.) But where are the 2nd Person games? This has just struck my thought chords for a while contemplating the matter on how one would go about designing a 2nd Person game. Would it be feasible? Just been wondering about it for a bit and thought I''d get some feedback on other''s thoughts. -SP

1st person = how your avatar see the world
(I walk forward. I move my head to the right.)

3rd person = how someone else sees your avatar
(He walks forward. He moves his head to the right.)

2nd person = ?
(You walk forward. You move your head to the right.)

I''d say there can''t really be a pure 2nd person perspective in computer games. I guess it is just a different form of 3rd person perspective, which allows you to see your avatar from a perhaps closer view than 3rd person perspective. But it''s still really a 3rd person perspective.

Second person is like third person, except you don''t know what everyone else is doing. It''s like first person in that you''re right next to (or behind) the person.

--SuperRoy

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Maybe second person would be a situation where you don't have direct control over what your avatar is doing within the world.

Though, truth be told, it makes more sense to me to call a FPS a second person view, as it's me that's actually in there.

A cutscene might be from a second person, where I see what my avatar is doing, but don't have so much control. EDIT: Or it could be one where I see my actions from an external viewpoint.

A third person viewpoint would seem to be where there is no avatar that is mine, but rather one of a group. EDIT: Or perhaps that there are a large group of avatars that are mine.

Hmm... Too bad the precident's allready been set.

[edited by - ThoughtBubble on October 4, 2002 2:37:03 PM]

Woudn''t second person view be a view from your opponent? I.e. you see everything that the boss sees but you still control your character.

Kars

I think Kars is onto something, in that he is attempting to evaluate "second person" in terms of the observer of the action. I've got a bit of a different take on it.

The terms First and Third person come from the grammatical forms used in stories of those types: the first being as if the author is the character, "I walk over to the door"; the second being as if the author is a neutral, observing third party, "He walks over to the door". First and Third Person cameras got labeled as such because the player is assumed to be the "author" for his character; then First Person is the one which places the player "inside the character's head", and Third Person is the one in which the player observes the character's actions.

Second Person storytelling would be something like "You walk over to the door. There's a bear behind it." But if the author takes control of the reader in this way it seems like something of an intrusion... unless the reader can help direct the action. "I run away from the bear, then" or something like it.

Come to think of it, aren't all RPGs (computer and non), "third person camera" action games, and pretty much anything else we call Third Person Game, a form of Second Person/First Person storytelling? In that case, what we call Third Person view is actually more like Second Person view - the player is not the character, but gives him direct orders.

Then a true Third Person story would be one in which the game and the player collaborate to determine the environment of a third party, then observe their choices. Actually, that sounds sort of like the Sims (from what I know of it).

Aren't the fixed-camera games such as Resident Evil and other survival-horror games something more like true Third Person? It's like you're directing an actor in a film - your perspective is that of an observing, hopefully helpful bystander. "Now, you go over to the left and open the door - no, your other left... Goddammit, did I tell you to fall into the pit? No, I did not!" ...then again, this could just be the sign of a bad control interface.

Sports games are also philosophically more like Third Person, because the perspective is usually that of a third party at ringside, and the player controls no single character but instead advises the key player and lays out general strategy.

Now given this sort of separation of terminology between camera view and storytelling method, I have to ask Silent Player which he was talking about. What do you ask about - Second Person camera, or Second Person storytelling?

[edited by - SpittingTrashcan on October 4, 2002 5:44:39 PM]

Kars is correct. Second person isn''t some weird mix of thrid and first person, it''s when you see from the eyes of a character other then the one you''re controlling. This is of course very impractical in games where your character moves out of range\out of sight of enemies (most games.) You could incorporate it into some kind of 3D fighting game, but it would be kind of weird. It would feel like you were attacking yourself.

Well, what if you had a 2nd person RPG?

Like you have a main character, and then you would see that character from various peoples perspectives. Like as the story moves along, you would see someone else''s perspective. Depending on what is happening in the story depends who is with the main character, hence who''s perspective you are seeing the main character from. I believe this has the possibility to reall be able to see character development, and be able to view the main character from a neutral point. You would see his good points, his bad points, and how different people are affected by them. If implememted well, it sounds like it could be cool

Games are actually always 1st or 2nd person. 3rd person would imply that you are only an observer, and you have no control over the story. 2nd person = most rpgs. 1st person = most shooters.

Which is why they distinguish it from the literary term by saying xth-person _perspective_ or _view_

Though the parallel with the literary terms is definitely there. The only way I see to make a 2nd-person view that is really distinguished from 1st and 3rd, I think would be to have it from the view of a character not controlled by you. The camera in Mario 64 _could_ be considered this if you think of it as Lakitu carrying the camera around, but you can only see him in the one room with the mirror.

This could lead to a really neat game if a person worked hard on it. It might be like playing Sherlock Holmes from the eyes of Watson. What might be better yet is to make a game that switches between all kinds of views depending upon what is going on at the time.