I did assume too much, though after fully watching, I still disagree with your take, and still think the past video hit it on the mark. I get your angle with trying to get philosophical and technical with it, but for me I always viewed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Person as practical terms so that it doesn't get confusing in various mediums, which your video illustrates.
actually 2nd person is when you 2 people and you second cause 3 person with 3rd person is not 2 people or 1 people, but rather 1nd person is only having one person with 2 person
A horror game where you're being chased by the camera, and the point is for your character NOT to be on the screen, and when you finally get away and escape the camera switching to the Resident Evil style diagetic 3rd person could really be neat
@@throwawaypt2throwawaypt2-xp8nx you go off screen and flounder, the enemy catches up, meaning you have to run away again, so either you risk going offscreen to hide or always let the enemy stay close so you can navigate consistently, it is its own gameplay loop and has built in risk-reward balance, I see this as an absolute win
@throwawaypt2throwawaypt2-xp8nx for sure, you could balance by allowing the player to take less or more hits/catches by the enemy so they can make mistakes and escape, maybe with injury progression so getting caught isnt free, etc
I actually first saw this in a game in rpg maker site made with godot (there were only 4 games which would made with godot and the one i'm talking about was a horror puzzle game with 10 min gameplay it was unfinished and had blue color theme and when you touch the tv a monster follows you but you won't see the monster, instead the camera is inside monster eye and you see urself running away from the camera when you are being chased
I can smell your age from here (NO SHADE. I'M BEING SILLY) Also. I disagree that they were the golden years, especially in game design, but they certainly were good years, as most years are! I'm a sucker for new stuff, and I have a favourite game from almost every year, and I personally don't think I could name a specific year as golden as they all have their game that makes that year a good year I LOVE GAMES AHHH
@@CYXNIGHT new games be like: player walks into room, theres a yellow ledge 4 ft away after 4 seconds "theres a ledge, maybe i can climb it" "maybe i can climb up on that ledge" "hmmm, maybe theres something i can climb on" "maybe that ledge is climbable"
@@trevise684 games that aren't triple-A slop more specifically, like indies and double-A's! If you're already doing that? Good! Keep going like that! And I'm sure you'll find many diamonds!
stanley parable is probly one of the best examples of the blurry line between 1st, 2nd & 3rd person narrative because sometimes the narrator refers to Stanley the character and sometimes he refers to You the player
It uses the term you when talking about you the player, like "Why are you still here" or "You must really like this closet", but refers to Stanley when actually trying to tell the story.
@@KasumiRINA It's first person a camera angle, yes, but it's a second person narrative, and an attempt at a third person narrative about the titular Stanley, though that rarely goes too well.
It's a fourth person game, narratively speaking, because the game is about the narrator, as well as being both about you and about Stanley, and the blurred lines between the two of you. It's not just fourth wall breaking, the interplay between the game and the world is an essential part of it. I'd say CONSORTIUM is similar, too, because in that series, you play yourself controlling someone in another dimension. Characters will sometimes address the PC and sometimes address you, and you can reference nondiegetic elements like the music.
Sorry, but this is not true. Just because that's how it's commonly been used doesn't mean it can't be adapted to be used in other ways. The purpose of language is for understanding. If we understand what second person is intending to convey, even if it's contextual, it's successful.
@@lamario The video clearly highlights how it causes a misunderstanding though, and surmises that we shouldn't use the phrases for this medium... did you even watch it?
@@QuotidianStupiditynah, he's right. It can be done if you get it. The terms of first, second and third person refer to comunication. The first person is me, the one sending the message, the emisor. the second person is you, the one who receives my message, the receptor. And the third person is everyone who isn't part of our conversation, neither emisor nor receptor, neither you or me. One way we could adapt this from comunication to videogames (or anything) is to replace "conversation" for "action". So for us to use these terms there should be an action taking place. If we take a fight as an example; first person is your player character, third person is someone spectating the fight, and second person is your oponent. You would be seeing the fight from the perspective of your oponent while still controling your character. The camera in the video's example isn't second person because the camera isn't taking part in any action, it's just third person. The npc following us wouldn't be second person either because they are just filming without interveening. But if the npc is instead chasing us, maybe it is the monster/slasher in a horror game, then it could be considered a second person, since it is the oposing person in the action we are taking place in
@@facundosilveira5535There's a retro example of second-person gameplay in the way you've described. In the NES game _Battletoads,_ near the end of the first level, the POV switches to that of the boss. Your character must pick up projectiles and throw them _at the screen._ It's neat for 8-bit and looks cooler than how I've made it sound.
Trivia fact: Winnie the pooh, the book, starts out 2nd person narrative. The author is talking to Christopher Robin, but the dialog is entirely "you went into the hundred acre wood and..." very interesting read.
@@lolglolblol My knee-jerk reaction was that Milne is creatively GOATed, but it turns out the real reason is actually very pedestrian and extremely sweet. … I’ll take that trade. ☺️
I love the effect of narration like this! I just read The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida which is a story of a man’s afterlife entirely in second person. It really fits with the way information is revealed and the choppy way it describes his emotions, there’s distance both for us and him, because we’re not him, and he’s dead (and has a little amnesia about it), but it makes you feel like you’re in the same role. it’s cool! love you second person!
A fine example of 2nd person writing is WH40k the End and the Death vol.3. Horus is written that way there. We assume it is whispers of the dark gods, putting ideas in his mind. He lost, but not completely a puppet.
respectfully, i cannot believe this video didn't touch upon visual novels or dating sims lol. doki doki literature club especially came to mind with how the ending scene is framed, but there are a lot of more text-heavy games like that where the player is implied to be the main character and is therefore being addressed directly by the characters (though it all depends on how it's written of course). your game prototype looks sick btw!
@@Al-qo2gg i was mostly thinking about the ending where it's monika talking directly to you, the player. i kinda forgot some visual novels narrate in first person over second person though lol it was just what came to mind while watching
@@frostyclouded You and Me and Her a Love Story is a VN which towards the end really plays with the context of what you did in this relationship as the player with a 4th wall shattering thought to have when playing other VN later
Agreed, this particular literary device has outlived it's usefulness in an interactive medium. Also love your prototype, both the person following and the camera network. They could be like really eerie walking simulators (cause combat would be a pain in those cameras, or maybe that would be the point).
Okay but an npc with a camera following/chasing you is so good. Leaving the npc behind when you go around a corner actually enhances the fear,,, if you want a clearer picture of where you’re going you’re gonna have to let it catch up to you. You can run away from it but then you face the fear of the unknown 0:54
Me sitting at my messy desk munching on pistachios with a water a Gatorade and a root beer sitting next to me, getting completely called out by a pre recorded video: 👁️👄👁️
I think the reason why '2nd Person' Video Games are so hard to describe is because actual second person video games are labeled as third person. 1st: From the POV of the player's avatar. (FPS games, a lot of horror games) 2nd: Looking at the player's avatar. (Hack-n-Slash, platformers, etc) 3rd: The player doesn't have an avatar that interacts with the world, so the focus is put on the world. (God games, civilization style games, some puzzle games.) Because the normal definition of 3rd person games includes what are really 2nd person games, it creates confusion as to what a second person game even would be. Going back to conversation, if first person is 'me', and second is 'you', and third is someone unrelated, who is the person that is looking at 'me'? Probably not the person who isn't even there.
I like your approach but after thinking at it a little it has some flaws in my opinion. I/Me : Pretty clear, it's myself. You/You : Not me. So it's another person. Someone unrelated as you said before. He/Him : Not me too. So it's another person also unrelated. It's like you have a scene with 3 persons, one front of you and another one a little further away. You are speaking with the person front of you (2nd) and are talking about the 3rd person. In any case the 2 others persons are unrelated to you. Or we can imagine that the 2nd person is your buddy looking your actions in the game (a little bit like the cameraman in Mario 64, "Lakitu Bros."). But in this case, the 3rd person concept has no more the sens you gave because to be coherent you have to see the scene from the eyes of the 3rd person, a person looking at yourself from distance. A little bit like if a random was looking at you when you are walking in the street. It looks like the fixed camera of Jam2go game.
That's right, people are too focused on forcing and theorizing a new perspective But the best example are games like Heavy Rain There are only choices driving the story, just like looking a movie a and choosing the chapters you want to see. But the game is basically pressing the button in the right order/timing You are literally looking at "them" doing stuff and in some scenes there's a split screen showing different angles of multiple characters doing different things If the third person is supposed to be "They/Them" this is the best example of a true third person As you said Uncharted/GoW style games are just 2nd perpective It's "You" seen from a different angle, but is still You There's no them/they
1st: The pov of the player avatar 2nd: pov of another person or external source looking at the player avatar 3rd: pov of me the gamer, looking at my whole game setup, looking at my screen (my pov), looking through the 2nd person's pov of the player avatar. When applied to a videogame. It could be a game with first person pov, the main avatar sits next to a tv and plays another videogame like rdr2. So that could be called third person, he is pov is 3rd person, playing a video through the pov of another person 2nd person, of the main avatar.
I can almost feel the amount of hours you have put into research to find the definitive answer to this age old question just to figure out its a error of nomenclature
Anyone with a brain knew this when it was first popularized by Nick Robinson. Placing a third person camera in a weird and unique situation does not suddenly make the camera not third person. It is, and always has been, semantical in nature.
@@bigdaddynero"Anybody with a brain knows" *goes to explain a fact that you have either learned before or you haven't and has nothing to do with inherent intelligence* Pretentiousness at its finest.
At around 4:10 I had this video paused for no less than 5 hours, got something to eat, and came back to Jam commenting on the fact I'm eating and criticizing my desk.
I felt so fucking called out ^^ I literally halted chewing when he adressed me with "yeah, you!" and was then completely baffled by the following "Keep eating!". Cause I literally stopped chewing the second before! ^^
This entire video is so worth watching. My man. I have been skeptical about every single thing I've ever seen on 'second' person. I have always felt like we are mucking up something and making it more difficult and more complicated than it really is. I love you man.
The point of view discussions always confused me because i always disagreed with what a "second person camera" was. you put together my thoughts so well
The definitions are 1st person: The person doing the action 2nd person: The person being acted upon 3rd person: The person observing the action A 2nd person perspective in a video game would be the perspective of a character or object that you are interacting with. Controlling the car being chased, and screen peeking, are both valid 2nd person povs under this definition. At the end of the day these are just words we made up so sure there’s room for disagreement about exactly what counts, but the basic principal is really pretty simple imo
Okay, that would mean that the perspective of any character that isn't controlled by the player would be a second person perspective. We have a third person perspective, then, when the "camera" is an observer who cannot be addressed or acted upon by any character.
@@seromaho1924 An NPC you're talking to, yeah. You walk up to a shop NPC, interact, the camera moves to their head and is looking at you while you shop. That's switching from 3rd person to 2nd person.
by your logic, i can say that the examples you gave are wrong, since seeing yourself drive a car or screen peek is you! observing yourself commit an action, hence its now 3rd but, how i would put it is you (character 1 or Zen), talking to an npc, or even another PLAYER (character 2 or Yas), and seeing yourself talk from the perspective of Yas now you might argue that this is still 3rd, since you're observing your actions from Yas' perspective BUT, you (from the perspective of Yas) is being AFFECTED by the actions of yourself (your own character, Zen), for instance, if i made Zen SHOUT, BUT my perspective was on Yas, i (from the perspective of Yas) would qualify as "the person being acted upon" which is your definition (or wherever you found it, kinda sounded aggressive, but im not, im just explaining) for 2nd now, this can also mean that the little thing that this youtuber did (the black square glossy screen thing) is somewhat right, since i was seeing myself react (my action = 1st) to the video, but from the perspective of the black square, which would be the 2nd, now im still controlling myself, but i can see myself from another's perspective, which is the complete replica of my little theory on your definition
Personally I have my own weird view on this issue where "Second Person" is specifically achieved when the game BREAKS that immersion, when it UNBLURS that blurry image of the three persons. It no longer invites you to "be the main character", it actively and willingly kicks you out of the experience. The first person is you as the character. The third person is you looking at the character from outside. The second person, is you recognizing that you are not that character. A good example of this is the French indie RPG called "OFF" (obviously massive spoilers including the ending), in which you control The Batter. That's what you're told, explicitly: you the player are simply CONTROLLING The Batter. You AREN'T The Batter. You are called out immediately in the beginning as "the entity that happens to be in control of The Batter." But that's not where it ends, because throughout the entire game, The Batter himself does occasionally address you, and actively pushes your choices one way rather than another. He tells you what his goal is. He sways you in those directions. It's really arguable who is in control of who at that point. Other characters break that fourth wall quiet often, from the character who guides you throughout the game actively calling out "the person controlling The Batter" to the classic merchant that every RPG game needs calling himself... "the classic merchant that every RPG needs". But it goes even further. At the end of the game, the guide calls you out, you the player. He tells you, look at what you've done. Look at the actions YOU have committed. Look at the things YOU have done. Look at the damage YOU have caused. And the guide gives you a chance: stop controlling The Batter, and side with them instead in fighting against his goals. And the game... let's you do that if you want. Or you can choose to keep controlling The Batter. And you get completely different endings from each option. OFF is a 2nd person game, for me. A game where you have a main character, and you the player are also a character, a completely separate one. ---- Another example is part of the ending of Earthbound, though I won't spoil that, if you know you know, and if you don't what are you doing go play Earthbound right now it's a masterpiece! EDIT: or maybe this iss 4th person because 4th wall. idk. I agree that we probably shouldn't be using persons to describe camera placement lol
That does make it second person narrative, but still not a second person camera. I kind of go with the idea presented early on in the video that a second person camera watches the audience. Not particularly useful for most games, but then second person isn't particularly represented in fiction writing either.
the narrative is second-person, and the camera is simultaneously third-person (focused on the batter) and first-person (you, yourself, looking at the game in real life is canon)
This does make sense, actually. I always thought of the person cameras as in relation to player-avatar to game-element interactions. First person is POV of the player character (while it's also the avatar, very important bit); third person is framing of the player character (while controlled as an avatar) as it acts on the game environment and interacts with other game elements. A situation where your avatar is a character you have to control, but also the most highlighted game-element (like in who's lila), the player avatar can encompass BOTH the character AND the cursor in a way that you are acting upon the game environment THROUGH THE PERSPECTIVE OF AN OTHERLY GAME ELEMENT... ...Yeah sure makes sense to me. Who's lila is a second-person perspective camera and there's no way to argue against it.
Basically most cutscenes then are 2nd person. Or say in situations like GTA5 when switching between characters and they're doing various things you had no part in.
Absolutely incredible video, the music, voice and delivery and just the whole script and material in general keep up the good work! This is going right next to Pyrocynical in terms of fav video game analysis.
I always thought of the French game "eXperience112" ("The Experiment" in north America) as a 2nd person game. You're not controlling the character on screen, you're literally playing as 'you', the player/observer. If you stop playing and come back the next day, the character will address "you" directly for leaving her for an entire day. Any interaction between characters will not include the player, since you're only an observer with limited ability to effect anything.
Reminds me of OneShot, another game that does something similar. You are your own separate character with the responsibility of guiding Niko, the protagonist. Niko will often talk to you directly, and if you close the game and come back later they will be slightly panicked, saying that for a split second, the world went dark.
I have an idea for what would be a REAL second person game, for example: imagine a game where you’re are the guy who controls the camera, you create your character and put your own name, but all the game is from your point of view and from the camera, but just like his game you control the main character, the OTHER person, you basically control BOTH characters, throughout all the game you have conversations with the other guy where he refers at you as “you” the games also refers in that way, when he runs you also runs, when he crouchs etc… it would be a second person BY DEFINITION, where YOU are referring DIRECTLY at another person🤔🤔
That sounds like true third person to me. An outside person not related to the goings ons. Like, i think the normal language of different povs is wrong, because the viewer is always the "they" in any situation.
Exactly. The third person is an outsider observer of the interaction of the first and second person. In eXperience112 you observing the hero but also have interaction. So the player can be considered as the second person if we state that the first person is the girl because it's her story. Every time I see videos about "second person" I miss this game to be mentioned as in concept this is the closest one I know.
Text adventure games like Zork are literally written in actual second person perspective in the actual exact original definition of the term. Second person perspective is a more common perspective in video games than in actual literature. Fascinating that there are like a billion videos absolutely drowning in a puddle, getting PROFOUNDLY lost in the most simple of subjects.
I was going to make the same exact commend. Well almost exact. Very similar. There are several games that don't really break the fourth walk, but it uses the same language as books. Choose Your Own Adventure games say "you do this" and "you do that". So why not text adventures? Also, Night Trap and Double Switch type of games I'd willingly argue are 2nd person games. You can't look around like a FPS, and the games address you directly. They don't call you a specific character. They treat you as you are you ...
That's first and second person narrative, which there is no confusion about. This video is talking about what people call first person and third person camera, which is a different subject with similar naming.
it's because the contradiction comes from gameplay and not narrative. the contradiction is that it's pretty hard to conceive of a game where you don't take part in the gameplay, I at least interpret a 2nd person game as one where you're in it narratively and on the camera but not gameplay wise, it's a contradiction that doesn't really exist in other mediums and almost certainly not an inherent contradiction of games, but one that exists rn in the way they are made
being followed by floating eyes, i can imagine a game where an NPC is going to explore and investigate an environment, and we, as a floating entity, have the ability to distract and redirect the order they do it. And the order influences what the NPC thinks about what needs to be done. Kinda like how every startrek has an episode where characters are out of phase with the rest of the world but need to warn the crew to save them.
Bunch of point-and-click puzzle games too. Flash had the Hopland series, about stick figures? You'd click things, the sticks would investigate and probably die horribly, I don't entirely remember...
Second person in writing is just when it reffers directly to the reader. This gets wonky with games because the entire experience is directed at the viewer. You choose where the character goes. When a character asks a question is being asked directed at you to respond how you wish to. A second person game can be as simple as first person perspective and you are directly being interviewed based on your personal responses, not in any way to progress the game. The same applies to movies where all that is needed to become second person perspective is breaking the 4th wall and speaking directly to the viewer
I feel like there is a distinction though between games where you play a character and choose what they say and games where the character is meant to be you. A customizable or intentionally ambiguous protagonist is a lot more second person than "I get to tell Spiderman how to respond to people".
@@cameron7374 it depends on immersion level. Playing a spiderman game is either “you are telling spiderman what to do/where to go” which is a completely valid experience (you don’t tell your friends “spiderman did this sick combo” no you tell them “in spiderman I did this sick combo”). Or you can view it more like “i am watching spiderman’s journey” which is also valid in cases like cutscenes or telltale games in general. But even in the most extreme example like a cutscene, it is all directed at you the player. Take Halo 1 introducing the flood, it is meant for you to wonder how you will fight them, or even pure exposition is meant for you to want to wish to explore the world. So I can compromise that being extremely immersed into a character/world of a game could kake it stop being second person is a good arguement, but Im not 100% sold on it
So glad the algorithm is picking up on you, the last few months of uploads are blowing up! I "lost" your channel around the mangrove motion era until you ended up back in my feed again and now I'm loving the content you've been putting out lately. Keep it up! ❤
First person, second person and third person is very explicit in the English language. Not so much when it comes to 3d games. In 3d games, it's just simply the position of the camera. And the terminology is loosely assigned to popular conventions for convenience. That's about all there is. Imo, in video games, there's only two main perspective methods that is easily distinguished. Pov camera, and external camera. All fixed view, npc view all go under external camera. Pov is when view from the controlled object is directly effected. This includes first person pov, over shoulder pov, and third person pov imo. And any small differences result from the kind of game that is built and how it's meant to work. (eg: some third person views act as first person anyway because the third person person camera gets aligned to the pov view all the time) And then ofc, there's the hybrid approach where depending on what you do in the game it changes.
"No go ahead, keep eating" haha nice try, I finished eating 2 minutes ago- "Why do you got so many drinks? You really need to clean up your desk" *looks at my desk covered in old water-bottles and cans* HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT
honestly, moss (the vr game) is the best representation of a 2nd person view imo you are an entity that can interact with the environment, and the main character is ALSO contolled by you
Thank you so much for making these. You're helping me, and hopefully many others, play with so many interesting, crazy, and fun ideas, not only just in games, but also everywhere else.
I think the best way I think its described is: 1st Person: POV descrived by yourself 3rd Person: External view described by someone else 2nd Person: POV described by someone else And thats why its so hard to capture in film, because you have to figure out how you create that "description by someone else" while maintaining that the YOU are the player. An interesting approach I could see is that the player does not actually control the main character but maintains pov perspective. Im unsure qhat the gameplay would look like. But that makes the most sense to me
The whole point of video is that the terminology 1st person 2nd and 3rd person is misleading. Just use pov or over the sholder. Because there is no meaning of 2nd person perspective. It's just semantics
Maybe 2nd Person view would be something like the external screen for VR games that is displayed on the TV. It's certainly not exactly your view because it's only one of the two eyes and everything is brought to a 16:9 aspect ratio, but it's describing what you are seeing for everyone else in the room.
maybe 2nd person perspective would be peeking at the screen of someone spectating you or watching your live gameplay on their screen. Your POV visually described by you and your POV visually described by someone else would be indistinguishable, because someone seeing from your point of view would see exactly what you're seeing.
17:13 It seems like a 2nd person game, to avoid being considered 3rd person, would need to not be attached to the main character and essentially be a free spirit kinda like when you use no-clipping cheats in a game and now you’re this Godlike being that can fly anywhere and phase through walls. It’s now a choice if you want to stay focused on the main storyline which is still ongoing as you’re flying around and exploring the map, or choose to continue doing your own thing. You are aware there’s a story being told and have to follow it because it won’t force you to as a fixed 3rd person camera does.
You could make the argument that you’d be creating your own 1st person story/experience out of the 2nd person experience. But it depends on the overall story you’re wanting to tell and if the main character’s story is more important than the player’s secondary experience capturing/following the story. You’d need to feel like a fly on the wall, like the new hire intern who stays quiet and listens, observes, and shadows rather than directly engage in conversation or decision making.
This would be a good idea for a game. Basically an interactive game where you have to pay attention to the events of the story to choose where to move the camera, similar to a movie, but you are in the control of the camera and not the characters.
This gave me the idea of a co op game where one player sees the game from the pov of the other, so player 1 sees the game trough the player 2 characters eyes and vice versa.
Not quite the same, but kind of on the same lines is a game called Screencheat. It's a simple pvp game where all the players are invisible, so the only way to find and target the other players is to look at their POV screens
Amazing video. At the end I am pretty sure I agree with your conclusions. I really had to hold down my thinking cap for it, but your presentation is easy to follow so I never got so lost I had to relisten to a part. Also, the cat.
Maybe the best way to describe the 2nd person, at least I thought of it right now is that you have a multiplayer game, where you need two players. "Player one" is you moving, doing things etc., and "player two" is holding the camera that you see through. So the core idea is to cooperate. Then you (as "player one") are playing from the 2nd person perspective, lol.
When you added a camera to the NPC that is going after the player: the footage looked EXTREMELY COOL. Like a music video, or one of those GoPro parkour videos. Very natural movements, like it was actually shot by a cameraman. I hope you'll figure out a way to integrate it into the final game.
I've never been able to put a finger on why all the "second person perspective" game ideas felt a little off to me, but I think you distilled it perfectly. A story written in second person is nothing like any of them.
Interestingly enough if you use written stories as a guide, then a video game cutscene would probably qualify best as a 2nd person perspective. Since 2nd person is pretty much about taking away your control. When I tell you a story in the 2nd person, I'm telling you what actions you take, or what you're thinking.
@@taragnorI disagree actually. Second person doesn’t need to take away your control. For instance, a Choose Your Own Adventure book is a second person narrative. It is a story told about You. You make choices as the protagonist of the story, and the author describes what happens to You as a result of those choices. And so, under this logic, I would actually argue the opposite of what you said. Regardless of camera angle, any time you are actively playing a video game, you are inherently engaging in a second person narrative. You assume control of the protagonist and, as such, become the protagonist. Once again, it is a story being told about You. When an NPC tells you to do something in a game, they are talking to You the Player. An NPC tells you “Pick up that rifle and follow me.” And then _You_ do it. But then, when we switch to a cutscene, we switch to something more like a third person narrative. You stop being in control of the character and instead watch them. They take control of themselves. You are no longer the protagonist in those moments. Which, I believe, is why a subset people have an adverse reaction to games with a lot of cutscenes. Lots of people enjoy them, but others complain that it makes them feel like they’re watching a movie instead of playing game. I believe the sensation they’re trying to describe is the somewhat jarring switch from second person narrative to third person narrative. The protagonist randomly switches from being You, to being a he or a she.
@@hdns4 Well, choose your own adventure is a bit of a different setup, but even that takes away control for the most part, save the actual decision points where you choose page numbers. Consider the following 2nd person narrative: "You're in a movie theater. You look to your right and see that your friend, who was there seconds before is gone. In his place is a stranger who glares at you in an unnatural way that makes you feel unnerved, like he's staring into your soul. You can't help but get up from your seat, stumbling your way the other direction past the legs of the other seated people. After getting clear of them you quicken your pace to a run, eager to get out of there and return to some feeling of normalcy." While reading that, you probably didn't feel a ton of control. You were you, but I was dictating your actions. It was almost like you were observing what you were doing, because I was telling you everything you did and felt. And that's the majority of 2nd person narratives. You're sort of a puppet in the hands of the narrator.
@@taragnor It may be the case that many text-based 2nd person narratives do not feature you being in control, but what I am saying is that a lack of control is simply a symptom of text-based 2nd person narratives and not the defining quality of 2nd person narrative itself. If it were, then any text-based story would be a 2nd person narrative. I'm in any more control of the protagonist in your example than I am of the protagonist in Harry Potter. The defining quality is the "You." A 1st person narrative is a narrative about me. A 3rd person narrative is a narrative about a he or a she. And a 2nd person narrative is a narrative about You. The pronoun determines what type of narrative it is. With that in mind, video games would also constitute a 2nd person narrative. You are the protagonist. Just like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book and just like the story you wrote in the comment above, a video game is a story about You. At least it is when you are in control. However, when control is taken away during a cutscene, it no longer feels as though the story is about You. It now feels like the story is about a he or a she. Then, when the cutscene ends, you become the protagonist once more. It's actually very similar to how Oppenheimer switches between 1st person narrative about Oppenheimer and 3rd person narrative about Strauss, but film is a little more abstract. For more clearly defined text-based example, we can look to the novel The Martian. Most of the story is written in 1st person from the perspective of Mark Watney's written logs. However, there are many sections on Earth written in 3rd person. Then, (SPOILERS) when Mark finally blasts off from Mars, the story switches to 3rd person for the rest of the narrative as he works to reunite with his crew. Mark is still the protagonist, but he is now being described in 3rd person rather than 1st person. The switch between 2nd person and 3rd person in video games is very similar, and yet I believe it is a phenomenon that is unique to video games, which is pretty cool when you think about it.
I've seen a few of your videos and enjoyed them, so i was planning on subscribing anyway, but "Have you finished eating? do you need to watch another video?" was what really earned it.
"2nd Person would be looking out at the audience" is actually a really good point. In that case, I think there are two games that engage in 2nd person - OneShot directly addresses the player as a second person main character in the narrative. You speak with the third person main character, Niko, throughout the game, conversing about the world and Niko's role in the narrative. And, avoiding spoilers, there's another entity that speaks to both of you, and their perspective is even weirder. But it doesn't include you visually - which is where I think the second game is exceptionally brilliant. Tearaway was a Media Molecule platformer (same guys that did LBP), and you control iota/atoi, who is trying to deliver a message to the Sun of the world. There are narrators who offer a sort of storyteller's perspective, manipulating the world and the storyline as iota travels through it. But then - there's another character that they address, and that character is you. You are the sun that Iota is trying to deliver a message to, and the game actually uses the Vita camera to place you in the sun itself, teletubbies style. It also asks you to modify and create in the world itself, acting as a sort of guide to iota. Both are really marvelous games, and I didn't realize until now that they kind of act as excellent second person stories. While OneShot is very metacommentary about the nature of stories and games, and is VERY good at it, Tearaway has a much more traditional approach, not engaging in metanarrative thematics - and I think its ability to still incorporate YOU, as a character, without drawing attention to your role as a player of a game, makes it even more fascinating.
I think there’s an argument that Deltarune is second person too - at the very least, the game’s opening sequence is pretty explicitly second person Come to think of it, I think Undertale had some second person parts too? (Both in the same sense as OneShot, talking to you the player)
oneshot being a second-person game is something i never even considered with this video or Nick Robinsons video, and it just makes so much sense actually.
"actually a really good point" not really, this would apply to the real you. 1st and 3rd person camera applies to the character you play as, so in this context 2nd person would also apply to your character.
So, when the game acknowledges the external influence of the player, is it 2nd Person? Does it apply to the Deadpool game? Patapon? Fire Emblem whenever they mention the avatar is guided by the hand of destiny (the player)?
18:11 I think while we're at it, we should stop calling character strategy/stat-building games "roleplaying games" since "roleplaying" is entirely irrelevant to the actual mechanic of leveling up and/or equipping gear.
I like how people are starting to call "metroidvanias" "search-action games" now. It would make sense to come up with a name for that too. Not sure what it would be though "stat games" seems simple enough
@@Jam2go I'm a fan of "character strategy" for a more grand title, while "stat-builder" works for the broader concept. While the actual strategic focus may be greater or lesser, games which focus on such mechanics as stats and composition like Pokemon or the more classic Final Fantasy games, or even most MMO-so-called-RPGs, the primary strategic element of the game is the inherent quality or qualities of your character or characters and the enhancement thereof so I'd call those "character strategy" games. I'd apply "Stat-builder" more to games where there is less of a concern for specific, strategic focus on statistics and gear and moreso on the simpler "number go higher" games like Diablo, Borderlands, or even newer Final Fantasy games. Where more skill-based games like the many From Software Souls games and their like fall, it's hard to say. They definitely reward more considered building of a character's statistics, but also have a high emphasis on player skill, to the point that simple stat strategy is not enough to improve them. The same I feel can be argued about games like Warframe, where a large amount of focus goes into managing the individual statistics of your various 'frames, but the primary gameplay itself doesn't concern itself with strategy so much. I wouldn't necessarily use those terms for games that use the feature in a more incidental manner, from point-based progress unlocks such as in some of the Call of Duty series, and I'd even argue that some games with incremental character progression might not qualify, like some of the Infamous series or the Prototype games. Whether games with elements like simplified "gear stats" should count such as some earlier Assassin's Creed titles such as Brotherhood probably shouldn't be considered either. Obviously the concept of "... with [stat-building] elements..." exists though, where it's relevant. I've sene the term "social simulation" being applied to games such as Animal Crossing that I consider far more deserving of the "roleplaying game" category than games like God of War.
rather than basing what is third or second person solely on the camera angle i think it works better if you also look at if the perspective is acknowledged in the narrative ie the security camera perspective would be third person unless the games story played in to it; for instance starting the game with a character sitting at a monitor going through security footage to solve a crime or something.
I think tabletop D&D is a true second person game. You get info from your DM who is telling who what is happening and what some of your options are. Always addressed as "you", not "your character" or addressing the character through "you"; it's YOU as in yourself. You don't really "control" anything besides the narrative, so I think it's the only way a "true" second person game can really be interacted with; in abstract. Also choose your own adventure games kinda. But the way you PLAY Baldur's Gate for example is still very much so what we would consider "third person" with current terminology even though it is written in the second person. In general though I agree with your main point; trying to assign separate linguistic terms with camera views is flawed from the start if not just plain dumb. It doesn't make sense and doesn't feel right because it just plain isn't. Those terms are for writers, and we should figure out new terms for cameras that separate them because the way it is now is just confusing.
I think you're right; 1st, 2nd and 3rd person only really makes sense from a basic language standpoint. Once the viewer/player is introduced, it really muddles things. Some games consider the player to be separate from the protagonist, others don't. When do we consider the player the "2nd person" and when do we consider them synonymous with the game's "1st person"? Fun stuff. I love these kinds of discussions.
I'd say the player is more like an outside entity controlling the character so it'd still fall under 3rd person. If you were playing BOTW and Link falls down a cliff you'd probably say something along the lines of "Link fell down a cliff" because we aren't actually with him, we're just an outside observer controlling him. I say 2nd person would be "You fell down the cliff" which makes it sound more like a character that is also within the game was observing and controlling Link, so the perspective from another character still makes sense to me.
This video was recommended and I watched it because of my fascination with 2nd Person (Andy Weir’s The Egg has been dubbed 2nd Person lit). Subbed. Here for it.
How did you just fit an hour-long documentary (?) in just 20 IRL minutes!? Seriously, I was watching for a while, which felt like an hour of information, and I was only 18 minutes into the video!
I think an interesting solution to the NPC camera loosing track of the player is to just spawn them somewhere else whenever the player moves out of view, it would be neat to see a game entirely from this perspective even if it's not truly 2nd person and there is no such thing.
4:51 Imma have to disagree with you because second person can only be achieved from somebody who is also in the story third person would be the audience they're literally the number that way because they're different levels of seeing a story, first being from the point of view of the main character, second being from the point of view of not the main character seeing what the main character is doing, and third person it's from an external person that isn't in the story.
Been following you for a while now man and you're consistently putting stuff out that makes me think "so i've just been keeping up with some kind of genius, huh"
You got me with that bit about about eating, lol. Didn't have a drink at the time, but was thinking about it. Certain perspectives are difficult to portray in some media. I like your train of thought on the matter. Also, yes, I'd like to watch another video.
This reminds me of the times when the charakters in tomodachi life call you out as the player (and sometimes even show you from the 3DS camera). I definitely agree that we should switch to "POV" or "topdown" or whatever suits the game, it just makes more sense.
I had this idea for some time that could be a strange 2nd person horror game which is using a webcam and face tracking as the controls. Mostly inspired by Five Nights at Freddy's, you'd hear sounds coming from behind you as something is stalking you and you would need to physically look behind you to counter it. You'd be able to map your living space to correlate to this. You have a door to your left, then a corridor, then a kitchen, while you just have a window on your right side? Make a map in the in-game editor of that, so you'd hear kitchen props being touched in the distance from your left before hearing someone walking on a hallway and trying to open your door, and looking there would reset the intruder who will creep up on you if you don't look behind you often enough. From your right side you would only hear stuff outside of your window, maybe someone tapping on the glass. Meanwhile you'd either just do whatever while this is just playing in the background, or you could play something like a detective game or horror game on your screen, and one of the enemies of the game would try to hunt you down in real life. I'm sure someone already did this in a VR game, but my idea was recreating your space and hearing sounds from it based on your real location.
Hello Dev friend! A 2nd person game, would be the boss fight of the first level of the game battletoads. the first nes game. where the view was from the boss and you have to attack the camera. the 2nd person is the one reciving the action, so, it must be the particular enemy or npc you are actually interacting with in that moment. Thats my interpretation at least. Im also experimenting with some 2nd person games, but nothing to show yet. See ya!
As many people stated, I was in the middle of eating when watching this, I had just put my sandwich down for a moment and right after I did you said "Keep eating" then you ask why I have so many drinks, I grabbed three bottles of water and took them to my messy desk with me before watching this, I feel absolutely called out, and seeing how that happened and this is the first video of yours I've seen, I'm subbing for more 4th wall breaking content lol
My uncle gave me a book about filmmaking a while ago. It uses a comic panel style to convey all these shots. I am a theater kid, I know the limitations and benefit of the medium. I’ve messed with film, criticized various productions for this. And I’ve been baited into the first person/third person false dichotomy, into the search for the second person, despite being one who prides himself on seeing nuances and complexities. I am an appreciator of the art of games more than an actual gamer or developer. But is this not freeing? We’ve opened a vault of potential creativity and inspiration, bending what “camera in video game” truly means. We can innovate now. Sure some people won’t get it, but isn’t that the point of art sometimes?
Wow, I've never known anyone else with this take, so I'm surprised to find this. It has irked me for a long time that games' cameras are described by terms that really don't make much sense for that medium when broken down, and I've been calling game cameras Over The Shoulder for "third person" and POV for "first person" for.. ever.. because, that's what they are Anyway, I'm really impressed by and excited to see the development of your new "camera network" project
In narratology, narrative forms (1st, 2nd and 3rd persons) are in relation to the narrator. His identity may change during a piece, he may be disembodied (an entity that observes the actions from everywhere), he may be omniscient (he can know everything including characters thoughts and emotions). In 1st person, the narrator tells the story as he lived it from his own POV. In 3rd person, he tells the story as the character(s) lived it from the narrator POV, he may or may not be part of the story (homodiegetic or heterodiegetic). In 2nd person, the narrator tells the story as YOU lived it from his POV. YOU being the person to whom the narrator is telling his story, i.e. the listener, reader or viewer. In most medias, the 2nd person is usually very rare as you showed, because it's complicated to be convincing. In Lady in the Lake, we can argue that it is 2nd person because the narration makes you part of the story despite yourself. But in the case of games, especially video ones but RPGs and ARGs could be included, you are playing a character of the story as it is narrated to you from the narrator POV. So in a way, every games are 2nd person. In almost no game can you be considered strictly in 1st person. You are never totally free : there is map limits, game mechanics, unopenable doors, obligatory missions, etc. You cannot escape the path the narrator chose for you (speedrunners will disagree), you can't raise an army of Gorons to fight Ganon in OOT, nor make friends with Bowser instead of killing him. You cannot tell your own story. You only are a character of a story narrated to you. The visual POV of a game is only the way the narrator wants you to experience the story of the character he gave you. In GTA V, when you change your POV from 3rd to 1st, the narration doesn't change, only the way you play the story. About what you say between 14:44-15:05, when you "describe" watching the Mario Movie, you are basically telling in 1st person " just watched the Mario Movie last night", which you then narrates in 3rd person " drove on rainbow road". But when you "describe" playing Mario 64, since you were playing the main character of the story, you are the narrator who tells to your friend your story in the 1st person " was playing Mario 64 and swang Bowser [...]". Considering your speculation about Deltarune. Kris isn't the 1st person, because it would mean being the narrator and therefore the game would stop as soon as he dies. I haven't played the game, so more speculations on speculations, based on the wikipedia article: In the beginning of the game, you can create an avatar and it is then erased with the message « No one can choose who they are in this world. ». It's explicit that the player will think he has control during this game, but in reality he doesn't. Kris is the main character, a 3rd person of this story narrated by an heterodiegetic and omniscient narrator, and the player is the 2nd person and controls Kris most of the time. At the end of Chapter 1, when "Kris rips out their SOUL, locks it away, and draws a knife, their eye flashing red." (Wiki) and, at the end of Chapter 2 when they kill themself, they get rid of the control of the player, which is represented by the SOUL, and show that they can be independant. The narrator chose not to make the player responsible for the death of Kris, by changing the narrative form from 2nd to 3rd person, making him spectator. All of that to say that I agree with your conclusion. This narrative terminology isn't compatible with camera's points of view of a subject. I suppose they have been chosen in the first place with the idea that the camera represents the narrator in movies and video games. But then 3rd person view could theoretically be anything outside of the playable character own perspective (like a peepee POV, or security cameras). A camera directed to the player can be considered 2nd person view in, but an external one... An internal 2nd person view would be a creepy "game" where you are shown what you, as a human, is seeing or has seen.
I remember playing a game a lot like the security camera thing. Actually, almost exactly like the security camera thing. It’s called The Republique and it’s an interesting take on stealth games
I think you kind of overthought everything and made it into nebulous word salad BUT to bring it back to the beginning. I think you are REALLY on to something with the two camera systems. I think the reason the non fixed / CTV camera's resonated more with your audience and drew a more explicit reaction of being 'second person' (larger discussion aside) is because the way the camera moves suggests something to the character of the camera operator. A CTV camera spins on a fixed axis and may zoom in and out to focus, but the way a person can frame shots, keep the camera steady, bob and weave. That can convey so much 'character' How does an older person film someone running? What about a kid? What about a professional photographer? Youre introducing another character just through the camera systems itself. That has never been done before. Dont worry so much about the naming convention but tap into that intrigue. The shader / photo stuff was only of passing interest but now that that is integrated into this super unique camera system.... I think you have tapped into something super special. I think you could convey a lot of cool stuff with this.
Yeah I get similar vibes and more or less agree. An NPC with a camera following the player character and providing a POV for the player to see their character, makes it 2nd person. Especially if that character can stumble, get lost, get confused or scared, etc. An unfeeling network of cameras is 3rd person because there's no person behind the camera, those views are only being experienced by us the player outside the game world. Except. The extra layer that brings it back to 2nd person would be, if there's a security guard watching the wall of monitors and controlling the cameras as they follow the player. Our perspective of the game is from this 2nd person's POV while still controlling and assuming the role of the 1st. It could either be abstracted by the game providing line-in camera views and having some voiceover of the 2nd person commenting on the footage they're seeing,, perhaps talking to our player and perhaps sometimes just to themselves. Or maybe it literally plants our POV inside the head of this person who is sitting at the controls in a rendered space, and their focus is on these monitors, or, the controls, or, some coffee and donuts. It might be that at various points in the game the security guard, who we are not in control of, takes their eyes away from the screen to do other things and we are in those moments unable to see what's going on. Then what would be the difference if suddenly we are controlling more directly the '1st person' through interacting with the world as the 2nd person, so now our interface directly controls the security guard but the intent is to guide the 'hero' through the maze. Does that make the security guard the 1st person now, even if they're a pass through medium for us to get the 'hero' to reach objectives? What if it's a VR game where we can control where the seated guard is looking in their control room, so we can see what the various monitors see and control the head, but, our controllers are still tied directly to the person being recorded? And if we know the cameras are linked to an AI instead, say a space station AI like HAL, that uses all of the cameras and sensors and probes to monitor the station, if we were to play the game from that perspective but with control over an occupant inside that station, it does feel like the 2nd person perspective holds as long as the AI is a character within the world that has some tangibility and agency of some kind, that we are not in control of.
I feel like a perspective where the character and audience are the same needs a 4th person perspective because you're not solely the character but you're not just an audience member with no say of how the story plays out you can now change things in the story because now it's not 1st person telling 2nd while 3rds someone whose just witnessing it, it's now 3rd describing while 4th experiences it as not only the character but also the audience.
Unrelated but i love your song slowblink from the kitten burst ost. I would love to see some more shoegazey stuff from you (after you finish this game of course)
This is gonna be a tad dense but, I think the issue is you're attempting to use the semantics of other mediums in the semantic system of a videogame. First person, second person and third person means something massively different in the medium of videogames than it does in the medium of writing, film, theatre, etc. This is because it's impossible to accurately translate the semantics of one medium to the other, as it ignores the context of it. For videogames, the reason why people are so interested in the "Second Person" is ultimately the same reason people are interested in "breaking the fourth wall" in theatre, and that is, it's destroying fundamental pre concieved notions of how the medium works (In theatre the fourth wall), making the medium itself be shown. It's showing stuff that's simply taken for granted in the established fictional "world". However videogames being a more interactive, immersive medium, enables us to create new ways to do this in a different way other types of art do. I honestly do believe first person - second person - third person is a really good and helpful way to clasify videogames, the 2nd person being somewhat analogous to showing what a videogame is as a medium as is a fourth wall break, except instead of theatre walls, it's more perceptual, more about sensation. I personally really like that videogames have their own unique way of talking about perspectives, as it opens it up to much more interesting ideas than if it just used the same sematics as film. Transcodification, as Lev Manovich called it, is a really important step in new technologies, however eventually we have to look at new technologies as a thing in itself, and that is when we can truly explore it, figuratively opening the semantic the black box, and letting the medium flourish into itself.
This is my take on this and of course, i am correct and cant be argued with. 1st person is the main character pov, so a 1st person game would have you as the main character. Easy enough. 2nd person is another character that is directly with the main or just in the plot in general. So someone following the main character would work. 3rd is someone outside the story looking in. For third person games, you are just yourself, looking into the story. So the cameras are third person, as it is something looking into the story with no involvement.
Please consider watching the video before leaving a comment!
I did assume too much, though after fully watching, I still disagree with your take, and still think the past video hit it on the mark. I get your angle with trying to get philosophical and technical with it, but for me I always viewed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Person as practical terms so that it doesn't get confusing in various mediums, which your video illustrates.
actually 2nd person is when you 2 people and you second cause 3 person with 3rd person is not 2 people or 1 people, but rather 1nd person is only having one person with 2 person
@@sylvstuffs Your confusion of words, be it intentional or not shows why people use these words from a practical angle.
@@PrairieWindSun understood
I didnt watch the video but i replied to this comment. I will now watch the video.
A horror game where you're being chased by the camera, and the point is for your character NOT to be on the screen, and when you finally get away and escape the camera switching to the Resident Evil style diagetic 3rd person could really be neat
This sounds epic holy hell, hopefully I'll get good enough at gamedev some day to be able to tackle this idea
but if your NOT on screen, it would be extremely difficult to continue navigating and escaping cuz u cant see. unless you have the map memorized
@@throwawaypt2throwawaypt2-xp8nx you go off screen and flounder, the enemy catches up, meaning you have to run away again, so either you risk going offscreen to hide or always let the enemy stay close so you can navigate consistently, it is its own gameplay loop and has built in risk-reward balance, I see this as an absolute win
@@algernopkrieger7710 that would be very difficult, but yeah
@throwawaypt2throwawaypt2-xp8nx for sure, you could balance by allowing the player to take less or more hits/catches by the enemy so they can make mistakes and escape, maybe with injury progression so getting caught isnt free, etc
I’m am john duty
Thank you for your service
@@msg21998 lol
Thank you for your service o7
Imagine not using Carlos Duty
o7
That camera set from a character chasing the player is so sick, I'd love to play a game like that.
Edit: yay gangstalk
Me too - it looks fantastic!
I actually first saw this in a game in rpg maker site made with godot (there were only 4 games which would made with godot and the one i'm talking about was a horror puzzle game with 10 min gameplay it was unfinished and had blue color theme and when you touch the tv a monster follows you but you won't see the monster, instead the camera is inside monster eye and you see urself running away from the camera when you are being chased
You should try Kane and Lynch 2, the camera is just a guy running behind you and when you die, he dies too
Siren on ps2 does this.
The Forbidden Siren series has a mechanic called "sightjacking" where you can look through the eyes of the enemies. Might scratch that itch
04:10 the "keep eating" while I was literally putting the fork into my mouth actually scared me a lot
Meanwhile im laying in my bed with my phone 💀
Looking at my desk after being called out lol
nahhhh ong bro i was eating at my desk with like 5 drinks bro
AND THE DRINKS ON THE DESK
"cctv cameras that switch based on where the player is in the map"
you have reinvented the golden years of game and level design
I can smell your age from here
(NO SHADE. I'M BEING SILLY)
Also. I disagree that they were the golden years, especially in game design, but they certainly were good years, as most years are!
I'm a sucker for new stuff, and I have a favourite game from almost every year, and I personally don't think I could name a specific year as golden as they all have their game that makes that year a good year
I LOVE GAMES AHHH
@@CYXNIGHT new games be like:
player walks into room, theres a yellow ledge 4 ft away
after 4 seconds
"theres a ledge, maybe i can climb it"
"maybe i can climb up on that ledge"
"hmmm, maybe theres something i can climb on"
"maybe that ledge is climbable"
@@trevise684maybe you should... Y'know... Play other games?
@@j.r1466 i do?
@@trevise684 games that aren't triple-A slop more specifically, like indies and double-A's!
If you're already doing that? Good! Keep going like that! And I'm sure you'll find many diamonds!
stanley parable is probly one of the best examples of the blurry line between 1st, 2nd & 3rd person narrative because sometimes the narrator refers to Stanley the character and sometimes he refers to You the player
Stanley Parable is a fourth wall breaking game on many levels (pun intended)
It uses the term you when talking about you the player, like "Why are you still here" or "You must really like this closet", but refers to Stanley when actually trying to tell the story.
It's entirely first person tho. It's just playing with immersion, and 4th wall, is that YOU or the character you play.
@@KasumiRINA It's first person a camera angle, yes, but it's a second person narrative, and an attempt at a third person narrative about the titular Stanley, though that rarely goes too well.
It's a fourth person game, narratively speaking, because the game is about the narrator, as well as being both about you and about Stanley, and the blurred lines between the two of you. It's not just fourth wall breaking, the interplay between the game and the world is an essential part of it.
I'd say CONSORTIUM is similar, too, because in that series, you play yourself controlling someone in another dimension. Characters will sometimes address the PC and sometimes address you, and you can reference nondiegetic elements like the music.
This clears us so much of my confusion. First/second/third person was never meant to describe camera angles, they refer to roles in a conversation.
Sorry, but this is not true. Just because that's how it's commonly been used doesn't mean it can't be adapted to be used in other ways. The purpose of language is for understanding. If we understand what second person is intending to convey, even if it's contextual, it's successful.
@@lamario The video clearly highlights how it causes a misunderstanding though, and surmises that we shouldn't use the phrases for this medium... did you even watch it?
@@QuotidianStupiditynah, he's right. It can be done if you get it. The terms of first, second and third person refer to comunication. The first person is me, the one sending the message, the emisor. the second person is you, the one who receives my message, the receptor. And the third person is everyone who isn't part of our conversation, neither emisor nor receptor, neither you or me.
One way we could adapt this from comunication to videogames (or anything) is to replace "conversation" for "action". So for us to use these terms there should be an action taking place. If we take a fight as an example; first person is your player character, third person is someone spectating the fight, and second person is your oponent. You would be seeing the fight from the perspective of your oponent while still controling your character. The camera in the video's example isn't second person because the camera isn't taking part in any action, it's just third person. The npc following us wouldn't be second person either because they are just filming without interveening. But if the npc is instead chasing us, maybe it is the monster/slasher in a horror game, then it could be considered a second person, since it is the oposing person in the action we are taking place in
@@facundosilveira5535There's a retro example of second-person gameplay in the way you've described. In the NES game _Battletoads,_ near the end of the first level, the POV switches to that of the boss. Your character must pick up projectiles and throw them _at the screen._ It's neat for 8-bit and looks cooler than how I've made it sound.
@@facundosilveira5535I just wanna say I really dig this take, maybe YOU should do a UA-cam video essay on it
04:10 The "Keep eating" just when I was thinking "Man, I don't think I will be able to finish this burguer". I needed that push lmao
Don't listen to him, he's trying to fatten you up so he can eat you
> creates poll asking us what a 2nd person game is
> "nuh uh!"
theres about 20 minute of video essay explaining why he disagrees beyond "nuh uh"
@@Sirebellum1337 Nuh uh!
What the fuck is happening
@@Sirebellum1337 or maybe its 20 minutes of "Nuh uh"
@@Sirebellum1337to summarize that 20 min in 2 words, “nuh uh”
I love those huge ass, rainy windows with distant lights behind you
It's such a fuckin vibe
"I love those huge ass"
Trivia fact: Winnie the pooh, the book, starts out 2nd person narrative. The author is talking to Christopher Robin, but the dialog is entirely "you went into the hundred acre wood and..." very interesting read.
That's because the author's son is named Christopher Robin and the story was written for him
This is the game industry's fault why did they skip 2? 1st person, 3rd person? Why no 2nd person? Ubisoft?
@@lolglolblol My knee-jerk reaction was that Milne is creatively GOATed, but it turns out the real reason is actually very pedestrian and extremely sweet.
… I’ll take that trade. ☺️
I love the effect of narration like this! I just read The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida which is a story of a man’s afterlife entirely in second person. It really fits with the way information is revealed and the choppy way it describes his emotions, there’s distance both for us and him, because we’re not him, and he’s dead (and has a little amnesia about it), but it makes you feel like you’re in the same role. it’s cool! love you second person!
A fine example of 2nd person writing is WH40k the End and the Death vol.3. Horus is written that way there. We assume it is whispers of the dark gods, putting ideas in his mind. He lost, but not completely a puppet.
what the cat doing at 17:25? lol
5:11 "Despite everything, it's still you." just had to put that reference there...
Dun dun dun dun DUN, DUN, DUUUN, dun dun dun DUN, DUN, DUUUN
The reference fills you with determination
instantly made me cry haha
like cmon man
i went to the comments the second i heard that
respectfully, i cannot believe this video didn't touch upon visual novels or dating sims lol. doki doki literature club especially came to mind with how the ending scene is framed, but there are a lot of more text-heavy games like that where the player is implied to be the main character and is therefore being addressed directly by the characters (though it all depends on how it's written of course). your game prototype looks sick btw!
bro is not a degan
But that game is in first person..?
@@Al-qo2gg i was mostly thinking about the ending where it's monika talking directly to you, the player. i kinda forgot some visual novels narrate in first person over second person though lol it was just what came to mind while watching
@frostyclouded It's okay! After I wrote my comment i started to understand a bit better!
@@frostyclouded You and Me and Her a Love Story is a VN which towards the end really plays with the context of what you did in this relationship as the player with a 4th wall shattering thought to have when playing other VN later
0:53 The player is blind (ish) until the cameraman catches up. ...Hey, co-op potential!
You mean like... the second player plays the cam and the first sees what they film?
I imagined that this could be done with duos if you switch the controllers
that would actually be a really cool way to play a game with another person, plenty of room for shenanigans and teamwork
@@ZoidbergForPresident Exactly.
yo cool co-op game mechanic idea! you see the game through you partner's cam and vice versa
Agreed, this particular literary device has outlived it's usefulness in an interactive medium.
Also love your prototype, both the person following and the camera network. They could be like really eerie walking simulators (cause combat would be a pain in those cameras, or maybe that would be the point).
Okay but an npc with a camera following/chasing you is so good. Leaving the npc behind when you go around a corner actually enhances the fear,,, if you want a clearer picture of where you’re going you’re gonna have to let it catch up to you. You can run away from it but then you face the fear of the unknown 0:54
true although i feel like you should be able to be outrun by your npc
ahhh exactly!! this comment sums up really well why it's so unnerving!
agreed, this is prime for horror stuff.
( and it was, i think a game called under the lighthouse used something similar. )
@@wesleyparish8280 not if things are in your way enough
The Evil Within 2 has a sequence similar to what you're describing.
YOU DIDN'T NEED TO CALL ME OUT FOR HAVING COFFEE, TEA, AND WATER AT MY DESK JAMES
I WAS LITERALLY EATING AND I LEFT A FEW DRINKS FROM EARLIER LMFAOOO
I felt personally atacked and didn't know if i should continue eating or no
Me sitting at my messy desk munching on pistachios with a water a Gatorade and a root beer sitting next to me, getting completely called out by a pre recorded video: 👁️👄👁️
I think using Yodayo AI, Sakura AI and etc. are 2nd perspective, because persona and always refers as YOU.
😂😂I was also just about to put the first morsel of food in my mouth when he called me out!
I think the reason why '2nd Person' Video Games are so hard to describe is because actual second person video games are labeled as third person.
1st: From the POV of the player's avatar. (FPS games, a lot of horror games)
2nd: Looking at the player's avatar. (Hack-n-Slash, platformers, etc)
3rd: The player doesn't have an avatar that interacts with the world, so the focus is put on the world. (God games, civilization style games, some puzzle games.)
Because the normal definition of 3rd person games includes what are really 2nd person games, it creates confusion as to what a second person game even would be.
Going back to conversation, if first person is 'me', and second is 'you', and third is someone unrelated, who is the person that is looking at 'me'? Probably not the person who isn't even there.
I like your approach but after thinking at it a little it has some flaws in my opinion.
I/Me : Pretty clear, it's myself.
You/You : Not me. So it's another person. Someone unrelated as you said before.
He/Him : Not me too. So it's another person also unrelated.
It's like you have a scene with 3 persons, one front of you and another one a little further away. You are speaking with the person front of you (2nd) and are talking about the 3rd person.
In any case the 2 others persons are unrelated to you.
Or we can imagine that the 2nd person is your buddy looking your actions in the game (a little bit like the cameraman in Mario 64, "Lakitu Bros."). But in this case, the 3rd person concept has no more the sens you gave because to be coherent you have to see the scene from the eyes of the 3rd person, a person looking at yourself from distance. A little bit like if a random was looking at you when you are walking in the street. It looks like the fixed camera of Jam2go game.
Thank you addressing the question around 1st, 2nd & 3rd person when applied to videogames.
That's right, people are too focused on forcing and theorizing a new perspective
But the best example are games like Heavy Rain
There are only choices driving the story, just like looking a movie a and choosing the chapters you want to see.
But the game is basically pressing the button in the right order/timing
You are literally looking at "them" doing stuff and in some scenes there's a split screen showing different angles of multiple characters doing different things
If the third person is supposed to be "They/Them" this is the best example of a true third person
As you said Uncharted/GoW style games are just 2nd perpective
It's "You" seen from a different angle, but is still You
There's no them/they
1st: The pov of the player avatar
2nd: pov of another person or external source looking at the player avatar
3rd: pov of me the gamer, looking at my whole game setup, looking at my screen (my pov), looking through the 2nd person's pov of the player avatar.
When applied to a videogame. It could be a game with first person pov, the main avatar sits next to a tv and plays another videogame like rdr2. So that could be called third person, he is pov is 3rd person, playing a video through the pov of another person 2nd person, of the main avatar.
I like this explanation
3:43 this type of talk feels like when your teacher tries to be sarcastic and funny
Haha, skippity, you're right
"keep eating"
me: *pauses my eating, startled*
I can almost feel the amount of hours you have put into research to find the definitive answer to this age old question just to figure out its a error of nomenclature
Anyone with a brain knew this when it was first popularized by Nick Robinson. Placing a third person camera in a weird and unique situation does not suddenly make the camera not third person. It is, and always has been, semantical in nature.
@@bigdaddynero"Anybody with a brain knows" *goes to explain a fact that you have either learned before or you haven't and has nothing to do with inherent intelligence* Pretentiousness at its finest.
@@HollabackCoy My guy has never heard of hyperbole. I'll make sure to explicitly state the next time I use one.
what the is nomenclature
@@HollabackCoy idk i think pedantry is quite pretentious
At around 4:10 I had this video paused for no less than 5 hours, got something to eat, and came back to Jam commenting on the fact I'm eating and criticizing my desk.
I felt so fucking called out ^^
I literally halted chewing when he adressed me with "yeah, you!" and was then completely baffled by the following "Keep eating!". Cause I literally stopped chewing the second before! ^^
Eating toast at that time too
HOW DID HE KNOW
This entire video is so worth watching. My man. I have been skeptical about every single thing I've ever seen on 'second' person. I have always felt like we are mucking up something and making it more difficult and more complicated than it really is. I love you man.
The eerie camera swapping in the beginning is super cool. would be interesting to see a game like this
You should try out the older Resident Evil games
Old games did this all the time to avoid dynamic rendering
Biggest takeaway is I like the pursuit camera you made.
i've never been prouder to have made it a habit of cleaning my desk of cups every night. i never knew this moment would come, but i was prepared.
I just straightened up and relocated my ENTIRE desk today so. Super prepared for this one. :D
Samee!!!
ME TOO
The point of view discussions always confused me because i always disagreed with what a "second person camera" was. you put together my thoughts so well
4:05 gave me a heart attack as I was shoving a waffle in my mouth
same i was eating fried rice
i even had soda bottles all over my desk on top of eating rice. i got jumpscared so hard.
The definitions are
1st person: The person doing the action
2nd person: The person being acted upon
3rd person: The person observing the action
A 2nd person perspective in a video game would be the perspective of a character or object that you are interacting with.
Controlling the car being chased, and screen peeking, are both valid 2nd person povs under this definition.
At the end of the day these are just words we made up so sure there’s room for disagreement about exactly what counts, but the basic principal is really pretty simple imo
Okay, that would mean that the perspective of any character that isn't controlled by the player would be a second person perspective.
We have a third person perspective, then, when the "camera" is an observer who cannot be addressed or acted upon by any character.
@@seromaho1924which is exactly what 3rd person games are - the camera that you're viewing through is not present in the world the character lives in
@@seromaho1924 An NPC you're talking to, yeah. You walk up to a shop NPC, interact, the camera moves to their head and is looking at you while you shop. That's switching from 3rd person to 2nd person.
by your logic, i can say that the examples you gave are wrong, since seeing yourself drive a car or screen peek is you! observing yourself commit an action, hence its now 3rd
but, how i would put it is you (character 1 or Zen), talking to an npc, or even another PLAYER (character 2 or Yas), and seeing yourself talk from the perspective of Yas
now you might argue that this is still 3rd, since you're observing your actions from Yas' perspective
BUT, you (from the perspective of Yas) is being AFFECTED by the actions of yourself (your own character, Zen), for instance, if i made Zen SHOUT, BUT my perspective was on Yas, i (from the perspective of Yas) would qualify as "the person being acted upon" which is your definition (or wherever you found it, kinda sounded aggressive, but im not, im just explaining) for 2nd
now, this can also mean that the little thing that this youtuber did (the black square glossy screen thing) is somewhat right, since i was seeing myself react (my action = 1st) to the video, but from the perspective of the black square, which would be the 2nd, now im still controlling myself, but i can see myself from another's perspective, which is the complete replica of my little theory on your definition
Those are not the definitions of those terms.
Personally I have my own weird view on this issue where "Second Person" is specifically achieved when the game BREAKS that immersion, when it UNBLURS that blurry image of the three persons. It no longer invites you to "be the main character", it actively and willingly kicks you out of the experience. The first person is you as the character. The third person is you looking at the character from outside. The second person, is you recognizing that you are not that character. A good example of this is the French indie RPG called "OFF" (obviously massive spoilers including the ending), in which you control The Batter.
That's what you're told, explicitly: you the player are simply CONTROLLING The Batter. You AREN'T The Batter. You are called out immediately in the beginning as "the entity that happens to be in control of The Batter."
But that's not where it ends, because throughout the entire game, The Batter himself does occasionally address you, and actively pushes your choices one way rather than another. He tells you what his goal is. He sways you in those directions. It's really arguable who is in control of who at that point.
Other characters break that fourth wall quiet often, from the character who guides you throughout the game actively calling out "the person controlling The Batter" to the classic merchant that every RPG game needs calling himself... "the classic merchant that every RPG needs".
But it goes even further. At the end of the game, the guide calls you out, you the player. He tells you, look at what you've done. Look at the actions YOU have committed. Look at the things YOU have done. Look at the damage YOU have caused. And the guide gives you a chance: stop controlling The Batter, and side with them instead in fighting against his goals. And the game... let's you do that if you want. Or you can choose to keep controlling The Batter. And you get completely different endings from each option.
OFF is a 2nd person game, for me. A game where you have a main character, and you the player are also a character, a completely separate one.
----
Another example is part of the ending of Earthbound, though I won't spoil that, if you know you know, and if you don't what are you doing go play Earthbound right now it's a masterpiece!
EDIT: or maybe this iss 4th person because 4th wall. idk. I agree that we probably shouldn't be using persons to describe camera placement lol
That does make it second person narrative, but still not a second person camera. I kind of go with the idea presented early on in the video that a second person camera watches the audience. Not particularly useful for most games, but then second person isn't particularly represented in fiction writing either.
thanks Kanye, very cool
the narrative is second-person, and the camera is simultaneously third-person (focused on the batter) and first-person (you, yourself, looking at the game in real life is canon)
This does make sense, actually. I always thought of the person cameras as in relation to player-avatar to game-element interactions.
First person is POV of the player character (while it's also the avatar, very important bit); third person is framing of the player character (while controlled as an avatar) as it acts on the game environment and interacts with other game elements.
A situation where your avatar is a character you have to control, but also the most highlighted game-element (like in who's lila), the player avatar can encompass BOTH the character AND the cursor in a way that you are acting upon the game environment THROUGH THE PERSPECTIVE OF AN OTHERLY GAME ELEMENT...
...Yeah sure makes sense to me. Who's lila is a second-person perspective camera and there's no way to argue against it.
Basically most cutscenes then are 2nd person. Or say in situations like GTA5 when switching between characters and they're doing various things you had no part in.
Absolutely incredible video, the music, voice and delivery and just the whole script and material in general keep up the good work! This is going right next to Pyrocynical in terms of fav video game analysis.
I always thought of the French game "eXperience112" ("The Experiment" in north America) as a 2nd person game. You're not controlling the character on screen, you're literally playing as 'you', the player/observer. If you stop playing and come back the next day, the character will address "you" directly for leaving her for an entire day. Any interaction between characters will not include the player, since you're only an observer with limited ability to effect anything.
where can I play this game?
Reminds me of OneShot, another game that does something similar. You are your own separate character with the responsibility of guiding Niko, the protagonist. Niko will often talk to you directly, and if you close the game and come back later they will be slightly panicked, saying that for a split second, the world went dark.
I have an idea for what would be a REAL second person game, for example: imagine a game where you’re are the guy who controls the camera, you create your character and put your own name, but all the game is from your point of view and from the camera, but just like his game you control the main character, the OTHER person, you basically control BOTH characters, throughout all the game you have conversations with the other guy where he refers at you as “you” the games also refers in that way, when he runs you also runs, when he crouchs etc… it would be a second person BY DEFINITION, where YOU are referring DIRECTLY at another person🤔🤔
That sounds like true third person to me. An outside person not related to the goings ons. Like, i think the normal language of different povs is wrong, because the viewer is always the "they" in any situation.
Exactly. The third person is an outsider observer of the interaction of the first and second person. In eXperience112 you observing the hero but also have interaction. So the player can be considered as the second person if we state that the first person is the girl because it's her story.
Every time I see videos about "second person" I miss this game to be mentioned as in concept this is the closest one I know.
5:12 no way you just hit me with the "Despite everything, it's still you." reference 😭😭
Text adventure games like Zork are literally written in actual second person perspective in the actual exact original definition of the term. Second person perspective is a more common perspective in video games than in actual literature. Fascinating that there are like a billion videos absolutely drowning in a puddle, getting PROFOUNDLY lost in the most simple of subjects.
I was going to make the same exact commend. Well almost exact. Very similar. There are several games that don't really break the fourth walk, but it uses the same language as books. Choose Your Own Adventure games say "you do this" and "you do that". So why not text adventures?
Also, Night Trap and Double Switch type of games I'd willingly argue are 2nd person games. You can't look around like a FPS, and the games address you directly. They don't call you a specific character. They treat you as you are you ...
Zork referenced!
The Stanley Parable is an easy example
That's first and second person narrative, which there is no confusion about.
This video is talking about what people call first person and third person camera, which is a different subject with similar naming.
it's because the contradiction comes from gameplay and not narrative. the contradiction is that it's pretty hard to conceive of a game where you don't take part in the gameplay, I at least interpret a 2nd person game as one where you're in it narratively and on the camera but not gameplay wise, it's a contradiction that doesn't really exist in other mediums and almost certainly not an inherent contradiction of games, but one that exists rn in the way they are made
Nice sweater. You have great taste in music!
Sir, I was eating. I literally took a bite right before you said it. I am shook
Even worse in my case. Was eating, and had tea and lychee on my messy desk. Like, bro. Stop. I came here to watch, not to be watched!
So your telling me the second person is behind the fourth wall??????? The lor is growing
i was not eating. i was doing the other thing.
being followed by floating eyes, i can imagine a game where an NPC is going to explore and investigate an environment, and we, as a floating entity, have the ability to distract and redirect the order they do it. And the order influences what the NPC thinks about what needs to be done. Kinda like how every startrek has an episode where characters are out of phase with the rest of the world but need to warn the crew to save them.
Jonathan Sims, listen to the tapes NOW
Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (1994)
Sounds like Ghost Trick
Like the games where mario has a bucket on his head and we need to nudge him into the rightvpath
Bunch of point-and-click puzzle games too. Flash had the Hopland series, about stick figures? You'd click things, the sticks would investigate and probably die horribly, I don't entirely remember...
Second person in writing is just when it reffers directly to the reader. This gets wonky with games because the entire experience is directed at the viewer. You choose where the character goes. When a character asks a question is being asked directed at you to respond how you wish to. A second person game can be as simple as first person perspective and you are directly being interviewed based on your personal responses, not in any way to progress the game. The same applies to movies where all that is needed to become second person perspective is breaking the 4th wall and speaking directly to the viewer
I feel like there is a distinction though between games where you play a character and choose what they say and games where the character is meant to be you.
A customizable or intentionally ambiguous protagonist is a lot more second person than "I get to tell Spiderman how to respond to people".
@@cameron7374 it depends on immersion level. Playing a spiderman game is either “you are telling spiderman what to do/where to go” which is a completely valid experience (you don’t tell your friends “spiderman did this sick combo” no you tell them “in spiderman I did this sick combo”). Or you can view it more like “i am watching spiderman’s journey” which is also valid in cases like cutscenes or telltale games in general. But even in the most extreme example like a cutscene, it is all directed at you the player. Take Halo 1 introducing the flood, it is meant for you to wonder how you will fight them, or even pure exposition is meant for you to want to wish to explore the world. So I can compromise that being extremely immersed into a character/world of a game could kake it stop being second person is a good arguement, but Im not 100% sold on it
So glad the algorithm is picking up on you, the last few months of uploads are blowing up! I "lost" your channel around the mangrove motion era until you ended up back in my feed again and now I'm loving the content you've been putting out lately. Keep it up! ❤
Thanks, I'll be sure to let myself know.
how did he take it?
@@throwawaypt2throwawaypt2-xp8nxHow did "you" take it?
@@throwawaypt2throwawaypt2-xp8nx I didn't take it personally.
@@throwawaypt2throwawaypt2-xp8nx Skeptically, some would say. But I wouldn't second-guess myself like that.
@@Flexistentialist good call
First person, second person and third person is very explicit in the English language. Not so much when it comes to 3d games. In 3d games, it's just simply the position of the camera. And the terminology is loosely assigned to popular conventions for convenience. That's about all there is.
Imo, in video games, there's only two main perspective methods that is easily distinguished. Pov camera, and external camera. All fixed view, npc view all go under external camera. Pov is when view from the controlled object is directly effected. This includes first person pov, over shoulder pov, and third person pov imo. And any small differences result from the kind of game that is built and how it's meant to work. (eg: some third person views act as first person anyway because the third person person camera gets aligned to the pov view all the time)
And then ofc, there's the hybrid approach where depending on what you do in the game it changes.
"No go ahead, keep eating"
haha nice try, I finished eating 2 minutes ago-
"Why do you got so many drinks? You really need to clean up your desk"
*looks at my desk covered in old water-bottles and cans* HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT
same lmao!
Are you saying you are supposed to not eat and drink?
TOO EASY!
Gamers don't --look-- _clean_ up.
easily best video on the internet rn, i was hoping someone would critique that old concept that we grew and love on youtube
honestly, moss (the vr game) is the best representation of a 2nd person view imo
you are an entity that can interact with the environment, and the main character is ALSO contolled by you
nah you're cooking here
Thank you so much for making these. You're helping me, and hopefully many others, play with so many interesting, crazy, and fun ideas, not only just in games, but also everywhere else.
lmao, I just finished eating right when you said "Did you finish eating?".
I realize this had nothing to do with the majority of the video, but twas a neat topic anyway.
i wasnt eating
@@Monkeymario.he was talking to me (I was eating)
@@throwawaypt2throwawaypt2-xp8nx did you also have several drinks on your desk?
@@ap1evideogame44 there were several drinks on the table, yes
THE NPC CAMERA FOLLOWING THE PLAYER IS THE COOLEST THING I'VE SEEN IN GAMING IN MY MEMORY WHAT DO YOU MEAN HELP
I think the best way I think its described is:
1st Person: POV descrived by yourself
3rd Person: External view described by someone else
2nd Person: POV described by someone else
And thats why its so hard to capture in film, because you have to figure out how you create that "description by someone else" while maintaining that the YOU are the player. An interesting approach I could see is that the player does not actually control the main character but maintains pov perspective. Im unsure qhat the gameplay would look like. But that makes the most sense to me
Interactive fiction could use it fairly well I think. I'm not sure how mechanically, personally, but I can imagine it working for something like that
The whole point of video is that the terminology 1st person 2nd and 3rd person is misleading. Just use pov or over the sholder. Because there is no meaning of 2nd person perspective. It's just semantics
Mr. Robot does 2nd person well.
Maybe 2nd Person view would be something like the external screen for VR games that is displayed on the TV. It's certainly not exactly your view because it's only one of the two eyes and everything is brought to a 16:9 aspect ratio, but it's describing what you are seeing for everyone else in the room.
maybe 2nd person perspective would be peeking at the screen of someone spectating you or watching your live gameplay on their screen.
Your POV visually described by you and your POV visually described by someone else would be indistinguishable, because someone seeing from your point of view would see exactly what you're seeing.
17:13 It seems like a 2nd person game, to avoid being considered 3rd person, would need to not be attached to the main character and essentially be a free spirit kinda like when you use no-clipping cheats in a game and now you’re this Godlike being that can fly anywhere and phase through walls. It’s now a choice if you want to stay focused on the main storyline which is still ongoing as you’re flying around and exploring the map, or choose to continue doing your own thing. You are aware there’s a story being told and have to follow it because it won’t force you to as a fixed 3rd person camera does.
You could make the argument that you’d be creating your own 1st person story/experience out of the 2nd person experience. But it depends on the overall story you’re wanting to tell and if the main character’s story is more important than the player’s secondary experience capturing/following the story. You’d need to feel like a fly on the wall, like the new hire intern who stays quiet and listens, observes, and shadows rather than directly engage in conversation or decision making.
Could make for a very interesting game.
This would be a good idea for a game. Basically an interactive game where you have to pay attention to the events of the story to choose where to move the camera, similar to a movie, but you are in the control of the camera and not the characters.
This gave me the idea of a co op game where one player sees the game from the pov of the other, so player 1 sees the game trough the player 2 characters eyes and vice versa.
Had the exact same idea, it seems the truest form of 2nd person view as you are both equal and actively interacting with each other.
Sooo kinda like "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes" ? As in, you have a bomb and the other person knows how to deactivate it
Not quite the same, but kind of on the same lines is a game called Screencheat. It's a simple pvp game where all the players are invisible, so the only way to find and target the other players is to look at their POV screens
Amazing video. At the end I am pretty sure I agree with your conclusions. I really had to hold down my thinking cap for it, but your presentation is easy to follow so I never got so lost I had to relisten to a part. Also, the cat.
Ha! Bro’s talking about the number of drinks on my desk, when I’m actually eviscerating my stomach on the toilet😭
Maybe the best way to describe the 2nd person, at least I thought of it right now is that you have a multiplayer game, where you need two players. "Player one" is you moving, doing things etc., and "player two" is holding the camera that you see through. So the core idea is to cooperate. Then you (as "player one") are playing from the 2nd person perspective, lol.
I also came to this idea. Though, conceptually it feels like "2PV", but really it's just TPV with an interesting gameplay mechanic.
But then… what’s perspective 2nd player is playing?
@@Suslik_D it depends. It may be 1st person view or 3rd person view. Or it may be just a bunch of sliders, buttons and other controls.
4:58 „because i don’t have access to your webcams… yet“ 😭
Wow, I absolutely love your lighting and set that looks so so good.
When you added a camera to the NPC that is going after the player: the footage looked EXTREMELY COOL.
Like a music video, or one of those GoPro parkour videos. Very natural movements, like it was actually shot by a cameraman. I hope you'll figure out a way to integrate it into the final game.
no need to call me out on eating and getting it perfectly right everytime
I've never been able to put a finger on why all the "second person perspective" game ideas felt a little off to me, but I think you distilled it perfectly. A story written in second person is nothing like any of them.
Interestingly enough if you use written stories as a guide, then a video game cutscene would probably qualify best as a 2nd person perspective. Since 2nd person is pretty much about taking away your control. When I tell you a story in the 2nd person, I'm telling you what actions you take, or what you're thinking.
@@taragnorI disagree actually. Second person doesn’t need to take away your control. For instance, a Choose Your Own Adventure book is a second person narrative. It is a story told about You. You make choices as the protagonist of the story, and the author describes what happens to You as a result of those choices.
And so, under this logic, I would actually argue the opposite of what you said. Regardless of camera angle, any time you are actively playing a video game, you are inherently engaging in a second person narrative. You assume control of the protagonist and, as such, become the protagonist. Once again, it is a story being told about You. When an NPC tells you to do something in a game, they are talking to You the Player. An NPC tells you “Pick up that rifle and follow me.” And then _You_ do it. But then, when we switch to a cutscene, we switch to something more like a third person narrative. You stop being in control of the character and instead watch them. They take control of themselves. You are no longer the protagonist in those moments. Which, I believe, is why a subset people have an adverse reaction to games with a lot of cutscenes. Lots of people enjoy them, but others complain that it makes them feel like they’re watching a movie instead of playing game. I believe the sensation they’re trying to describe is the somewhat jarring switch from second person narrative to third person narrative. The protagonist randomly switches from being You, to being a he or a she.
@@hdns4 Well, choose your own adventure is a bit of a different setup, but even that takes away control for the most part, save the actual decision points where you choose page numbers.
Consider the following 2nd person narrative: "You're in a movie theater. You look to your right and see that your friend, who was there seconds before is gone. In his place is a stranger who glares at you in an unnatural way that makes you feel unnerved, like he's staring into your soul. You can't help but get up from your seat, stumbling your way the other direction past the legs of the other seated people. After getting clear of them you quicken your pace to a run, eager to get out of there and return to some feeling of normalcy."
While reading that, you probably didn't feel a ton of control. You were you, but I was dictating your actions. It was almost like you were observing what you were doing, because I was telling you everything you did and felt. And that's the majority of 2nd person narratives. You're sort of a puppet in the hands of the narrator.
@@taragnor It may be the case that many text-based 2nd person narratives do not feature you being in control, but what I am saying is that a lack of control is simply a symptom of text-based 2nd person narratives and not the defining quality of 2nd person narrative itself. If it were, then any text-based story would be a 2nd person narrative. I'm in any more control of the protagonist in your example than I am of the protagonist in Harry Potter. The defining quality is the "You." A 1st person narrative is a narrative about me. A 3rd person narrative is a narrative about a he or a she. And a 2nd person narrative is a narrative about You. The pronoun determines what type of narrative it is.
With that in mind, video games would also constitute a 2nd person narrative. You are the protagonist. Just like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book and just like the story you wrote in the comment above, a video game is a story about You. At least it is when you are in control. However, when control is taken away during a cutscene, it no longer feels as though the story is about You. It now feels like the story is about a he or a she. Then, when the cutscene ends, you become the protagonist once more.
It's actually very similar to how Oppenheimer switches between 1st person narrative about Oppenheimer and 3rd person narrative about Strauss, but film is a little more abstract. For more clearly defined text-based example, we can look to the novel The Martian. Most of the story is written in 1st person from the perspective of Mark Watney's written logs. However, there are many sections on Earth written in 3rd person. Then, (SPOILERS) when Mark finally blasts off from Mars, the story switches to 3rd person for the rest of the narrative as he works to reunite with his crew. Mark is still the protagonist, but he is now being described in 3rd person rather than 1st person. The switch between 2nd person and 3rd person in video games is very similar, and yet I believe it is a phenomenon that is unique to video games, which is pretty cool when you think about it.
I've seen a few of your videos and enjoyed them, so i was planning on subscribing anyway, but "Have you finished eating? do you need to watch another video?" was what really earned it.
I love the camera-man perspective. It reminds me of a vlog channel or a reality tv show
"2nd Person would be looking out at the audience" is actually a really good point. In that case, I think there are two games that engage in 2nd person - OneShot directly addresses the player as a second person main character in the narrative. You speak with the third person main character, Niko, throughout the game, conversing about the world and Niko's role in the narrative. And, avoiding spoilers, there's another entity that speaks to both of you, and their perspective is even weirder.
But it doesn't include you visually - which is where I think the second game is exceptionally brilliant.
Tearaway was a Media Molecule platformer (same guys that did LBP), and you control iota/atoi, who is trying to deliver a message to the Sun of the world. There are narrators who offer a sort of storyteller's perspective, manipulating the world and the storyline as iota travels through it. But then - there's another character that they address, and that character is you. You are the sun that Iota is trying to deliver a message to, and the game actually uses the Vita camera to place you in the sun itself, teletubbies style. It also asks you to modify and create in the world itself, acting as a sort of guide to iota.
Both are really marvelous games, and I didn't realize until now that they kind of act as excellent second person stories. While OneShot is very metacommentary about the nature of stories and games, and is VERY good at it, Tearaway has a much more traditional approach, not engaging in metanarrative thematics - and I think its ability to still incorporate YOU, as a character, without drawing attention to your role as a player of a game, makes it even more fascinating.
I think there’s an argument that Deltarune is second person too - at the very least, the game’s opening sequence is pretty explicitly second person
Come to think of it, I think Undertale had some second person parts too? (Both in the same sense as OneShot, talking to you the player)
oneshot being a second-person game is something i never even considered with this video or Nick Robinsons video, and it just makes so much sense actually.
I find it kinda funny how both of your examples are games where the "Sun" is a very important plot point. Lol.
"actually a really good point" not really, this would apply to the real you. 1st and 3rd person camera applies to the character you play as, so in this context 2nd person would also apply to your character.
So, when the game acknowledges the external influence of the player, is it 2nd Person? Does it apply to the Deadpool game? Patapon? Fire Emblem whenever they mention the avatar is guided by the hand of destiny (the player)?
I love the editing of this video so much, and the fact language changes so much to fit the situation really sits in with this video
16:12 IM SO GLAD YOU BROUGHT UP DELTARUNE I WAS THINKING ABOUT DELTARUNE WHILE YOU WERE TALKING AND WONDERING IF YOU WERE GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT
18:11 I think while we're at it, we should stop calling character strategy/stat-building games "roleplaying games" since "roleplaying" is entirely irrelevant to the actual mechanic of leveling up and/or equipping gear.
I like how people are starting to call "metroidvanias" "search-action games" now. It would make sense to come up with a name for that too. Not sure what it would be though "stat games" seems simple enough
@@Jam2go I'm a fan of "character strategy" for a more grand title, while "stat-builder" works for the broader concept. While the actual strategic focus may be greater or lesser, games which focus on such mechanics as stats and composition like Pokemon or the more classic Final Fantasy games, or even most MMO-so-called-RPGs, the primary strategic element of the game is the inherent quality or qualities of your character or characters and the enhancement thereof so I'd call those "character strategy" games. I'd apply "Stat-builder" more to games where there is less of a concern for specific, strategic focus on statistics and gear and moreso on the simpler "number go higher" games like Diablo, Borderlands, or even newer Final Fantasy games. Where more skill-based games like the many From Software Souls games and their like fall, it's hard to say. They definitely reward more considered building of a character's statistics, but also have a high emphasis on player skill, to the point that simple stat strategy is not enough to improve them. The same I feel can be argued about games like Warframe, where a large amount of focus goes into managing the individual statistics of your various 'frames, but the primary gameplay itself doesn't concern itself with strategy so much.
I wouldn't necessarily use those terms for games that use the feature in a more incidental manner, from point-based progress unlocks such as in some of the Call of Duty series, and I'd even argue that some games with incremental character progression might not qualify, like some of the Infamous series or the Prototype games. Whether games with elements like simplified "gear stats" should count such as some earlier Assassin's Creed titles such as Brotherhood probably shouldn't be considered either. Obviously the concept of "... with [stat-building] elements..." exists though, where it's relevant.
I've sene the term "social simulation" being applied to games such as Animal Crossing that I consider far more deserving of the "roleplaying game" category than games like God of War.
Your cat going crazy throughout the video and you just ignoring it is perfect 😂
rather than basing what is third or second person solely on the camera angle i think it works better if you also look at if the perspective is acknowledged in the narrative ie the security camera perspective would be third person unless the games story played in to it; for instance starting the game with a character sitting at a monitor going through security footage to solve a crime or something.
I think tabletop D&D is a true second person game. You get info from your DM who is telling who what is happening and what some of your options are. Always addressed as "you", not "your character" or addressing the character through "you"; it's YOU as in yourself. You don't really "control" anything besides the narrative, so I think it's the only way a "true" second person game can really be interacted with; in abstract. Also choose your own adventure games kinda. But the way you PLAY Baldur's Gate for example is still very much so what we would consider "third person" with current terminology even though it is written in the second person.
In general though I agree with your main point; trying to assign separate linguistic terms with camera views is flawed from the start if not just plain dumb. It doesn't make sense and doesn't feel right because it just plain isn't. Those terms are for writers, and we should figure out new terms for cameras that separate them because the way it is now is just confusing.
The DM is the one playing a second person game. You, as a player, are playing first person.
I can't understate how well this video is put together and how much I love the editing and tone. Great work.
I think you're right; 1st, 2nd and 3rd person only really makes sense from a basic language standpoint. Once the viewer/player is introduced, it really muddles things. Some games consider the player to be separate from the protagonist, others don't. When do we consider the player the "2nd person" and when do we consider them synonymous with the game's "1st person"?
Fun stuff. I love these kinds of discussions.
I'd say the player is more like an outside entity controlling the character so it'd still fall under 3rd person. If you were playing BOTW and Link falls down a cliff you'd probably say something along the lines of "Link fell down a cliff" because we aren't actually with him, we're just an outside observer controlling him. I say 2nd person would be "You fell down the cliff" which makes it sound more like a character that is also within the game was observing and controlling Link, so the perspective from another character still makes sense to me.
@@b0ssl0af72 Huh. I thought it was obvious in that situation to say "Dang, I fell off a cliff" or "I just died again"...
This video was recommended and I watched it because of my fascination with 2nd Person (Andy Weir’s The Egg has been dubbed 2nd Person lit). Subbed. Here for it.
How did you just fit an hour-long documentary (?) in just 20 IRL minutes!? Seriously, I was watching for a while, which felt like an hour of information, and I was only 18 minutes into the video!
what's the difference between irl minutes and non irl minutes. every minute that goes by in america, 60 sec passes in africa
it's called pacing
I think an interesting solution to the NPC camera loosing track of the player is to just spawn them somewhere else whenever the player moves out of view, it would be neat to see a game entirely from this perspective even if it's not truly 2nd person and there is no such thing.
4:51 Imma have to disagree with you because second person can only be achieved from somebody who is also in the story third person would be the audience they're literally the number that way because they're different levels of seeing a story, first being from the point of view of the main character, second being from the point of view of not the main character seeing what the main character is doing, and third person it's from an external person that isn't in the story.
4:15 literally stopped munching on my cookie before you said to go ahead AND i have multiple drinks here... I feel called out
Camella my beloved 1:47
Best camera in whole game tbh
Not even Camo wins for best camera
"I don't have access to your webcams... yet"
"Hey! Vsauce. Anonymous here. Your digital security is great! ... or is it?"
@@Rudxain**narrates your address and social security**
Been following you for a while now man and you're consistently putting stuff out that makes me think "so i've just been keeping up with some kind of genius, huh"
You got me with that bit about about eating, lol. Didn't have a drink at the time, but was thinking about it.
Certain perspectives are difficult to portray in some media. I like your train of thought on the matter.
Also, yes, I'd like to watch another video.
This reminds me of the times when the charakters in tomodachi life call you out as the player (and sometimes even show you from the 3DS camera). I definitely agree that we should switch to "POV" or "topdown" or whatever suits the game, it just makes more sense.
the messy desk part completely flew over me because I'm watching this on a couch without any food 😭
I had this idea for some time that could be a strange 2nd person horror game which is using a webcam and face tracking as the controls.
Mostly inspired by Five Nights at Freddy's, you'd hear sounds coming from behind you as something is stalking you and you would need to physically look behind you to counter it.
You'd be able to map your living space to correlate to this. You have a door to your left, then a corridor, then a kitchen, while you just have a window on your right side? Make a map in the in-game editor of that, so you'd hear kitchen props being touched in the distance from your left before hearing someone walking on a hallway and trying to open your door, and looking there would reset the intruder who will creep up on you if you don't look behind you often enough. From your right side you would only hear stuff outside of your window, maybe someone tapping on the glass.
Meanwhile you'd either just do whatever while this is just playing in the background, or you could play something like a detective game or horror game on your screen, and one of the enemies of the game would try to hunt you down in real life. I'm sure someone already did this in a VR game, but my idea was recreating your space and hearing sounds from it based on your real location.
this is a great idea, as a very paranoid person this would be AWFUL for me. but for a lot of people this is a really good concept
Hello Dev friend! A 2nd person game, would be the boss fight of the first level of the game battletoads. the first nes game. where the view was from the boss and you have to attack the camera. the 2nd person is the one reciving the action, so, it must be the particular enemy or npc you are actually interacting with in that moment. Thats my interpretation at least. Im also experimenting with some 2nd person games, but nothing to show yet. See ya!
As many people stated, I was in the middle of eating when watching this, I had just put my sandwich down for a moment and right after I did you said "Keep eating" then you ask why I have so many drinks, I grabbed three bottles of water and took them to my messy desk with me before watching this, I feel absolutely called out, and seeing how that happened and this is the first video of yours I've seen, I'm subbing for more 4th wall breaking content lol
My uncle gave me a book about filmmaking a while ago. It uses a comic panel style to convey all these shots.
I am a theater kid, I know the limitations and benefit of the medium. I’ve messed with film, criticized various productions for this.
And I’ve been baited into the first person/third person false dichotomy, into the search for the second person, despite being one who prides himself on seeing nuances and complexities.
I am an appreciator of the art of games more than an actual gamer or developer. But is this not freeing? We’ve opened a vault of potential creativity and inspiration, bending what “camera in video game” truly means. We can innovate now. Sure some people won’t get it, but isn’t that the point of art sometimes?
5:30 jerma jumpscare
His clothes loaded in quickly that time
Wow, I've never known anyone else with this take, so I'm surprised to find this. It has irked me for a long time that games' cameras are described by terms that really don't make much sense for that medium when broken down, and I've been calling game cameras Over The Shoulder for "third person" and POV for "first person" for.. ever.. because, that's what they are
Anyway, I'm really impressed by and excited to see the development of your new "camera network" project
So you made a Celebrity Simulator where they try to get one brief moment of privacy from surveillance and one stubborn fan with a camera
In narratology, narrative forms (1st, 2nd and 3rd persons) are in relation to the narrator. His identity may change during a piece, he may be disembodied (an entity that observes the actions from everywhere), he may be omniscient (he can know everything including characters thoughts and emotions).
In 1st person, the narrator tells the story as he lived it from his own POV.
In 3rd person, he tells the story as the character(s) lived it from the narrator POV, he may or may not be part of the story (homodiegetic or heterodiegetic).
In 2nd person, the narrator tells the story as YOU lived it from his POV. YOU being the person to whom the narrator is telling his story, i.e. the listener, reader or viewer.
In most medias, the 2nd person is usually very rare as you showed, because it's complicated to be convincing. In Lady in the Lake, we can argue that it is 2nd person because the narration makes you part of the story despite yourself. But in the case of games, especially video ones but RPGs and ARGs could be included, you are playing a character of the story as it is narrated to you from the narrator POV. So in a way, every games are 2nd person.
In almost no game can you be considered strictly in 1st person. You are never totally free : there is map limits, game mechanics, unopenable doors, obligatory missions, etc. You cannot escape the path the narrator chose for you (speedrunners will disagree), you can't raise an army of Gorons to fight Ganon in OOT, nor make friends with Bowser instead of killing him. You cannot tell your own story. You only are a character of a story narrated to you. The visual POV of a game is only the way the narrator wants you to experience the story of the character he gave you. In GTA V, when you change your POV from 3rd to 1st, the narration doesn't change, only the way you play the story.
About what you say between 14:44-15:05, when you "describe" watching the Mario Movie, you are basically telling in 1st person " just watched the Mario Movie last night", which you then narrates in 3rd person " drove on rainbow road". But when you "describe" playing Mario 64, since you were playing the main character of the story, you are the narrator who tells to your friend your story in the 1st person " was playing Mario 64 and swang Bowser [...]".
Considering your speculation about Deltarune. Kris isn't the 1st person, because it would mean being the narrator and therefore the game would stop as soon as he dies. I haven't played the game, so more speculations on speculations, based on the wikipedia article:
In the beginning of the game, you can create an avatar and it is then erased with the message « No one can choose who they are in this world. ». It's explicit that the player will think he has control during this game, but in reality he doesn't.
Kris is the main character, a 3rd person of this story narrated by an heterodiegetic and omniscient narrator, and the player is the 2nd person and controls Kris most of the time. At the end of Chapter 1, when "Kris rips out their SOUL, locks it away, and draws a knife, their eye flashing red." (Wiki) and, at the end of Chapter 2 when they kill themself, they get rid of the control of the player, which is represented by the SOUL, and show that they can be independant. The narrator chose not to make the player responsible for the death of Kris, by changing the narrative form from 2nd to 3rd person, making him spectator.
All of that to say that I agree with your conclusion. This narrative terminology isn't compatible with camera's points of view of a subject. I suppose they have been chosen in the first place with the idea that the camera represents the narrator in movies and video games. But then 3rd person view could theoretically be anything outside of the playable character own perspective (like a peepee POV, or security cameras). A camera directed to the player can be considered 2nd person view in, but an external one... An internal 2nd person view would be a creepy "game" where you are shown what you, as a human, is seeing or has seen.
I remember playing a game a lot like the security camera thing. Actually, almost exactly like the security camera thing. It’s called The Republique and it’s an interesting take on stealth games
Nice desk setup you got there, I'm impressed
Edit: the cat at 17:26
17:24 the cat scared the heck out of me omg
cat was the 2nd person all along
This is actually so cool, oh my god.
Big fan of the sweater, too.
I think you kind of overthought everything and made it into nebulous word salad BUT
to bring it back to the beginning. I think you are REALLY on to something with the two camera systems. I think the reason the non fixed / CTV camera's resonated more with your audience and drew a more explicit reaction of being 'second person' (larger discussion aside) is because the way the camera moves suggests something to the character of the camera operator.
A CTV camera spins on a fixed axis and may zoom in and out to focus, but the way a person can frame shots, keep the camera steady, bob and weave. That can convey so much 'character'
How does an older person film someone running? What about a kid? What about a professional photographer? Youre introducing another character just through the camera systems itself. That has never been done before. Dont worry so much about the naming convention but tap into that intrigue.
The shader / photo stuff was only of passing interest but now that that is integrated into this super unique camera system.... I think you have tapped into something super special. I think you could convey a lot of cool stuff with this.
Yeah I get similar vibes and more or less agree. An NPC with a camera following the player character and providing a POV for the player to see their character, makes it 2nd person. Especially if that character can stumble, get lost, get confused or scared, etc. An unfeeling network of cameras is 3rd person because there's no person behind the camera, those views are only being experienced by us the player outside the game world.
Except.
The extra layer that brings it back to 2nd person would be, if there's a security guard watching the wall of monitors and controlling the cameras as they follow the player. Our perspective of the game is from this 2nd person's POV while still controlling and assuming the role of the 1st. It could either be abstracted by the game providing line-in camera views and having some voiceover of the 2nd person commenting on the footage they're seeing,, perhaps talking to our player and perhaps sometimes just to themselves. Or maybe it literally plants our POV inside the head of this person who is sitting at the controls in a rendered space, and their focus is on these monitors, or, the controls, or, some coffee and donuts. It might be that at various points in the game the security guard, who we are not in control of, takes their eyes away from the screen to do other things and we are in those moments unable to see what's going on.
Then what would be the difference if suddenly we are controlling more directly the '1st person' through interacting with the world as the 2nd person, so now our interface directly controls the security guard but the intent is to guide the 'hero' through the maze. Does that make the security guard the 1st person now, even if they're a pass through medium for us to get the 'hero' to reach objectives? What if it's a VR game where we can control where the seated guard is looking in their control room, so we can see what the various monitors see and control the head, but, our controllers are still tied directly to the person being recorded?
And if we know the cameras are linked to an AI instead, say a space station AI like HAL, that uses all of the cameras and sensors and probes to monitor the station, if we were to play the game from that perspective but with control over an occupant inside that station, it does feel like the 2nd person perspective holds as long as the AI is a character within the world that has some tangibility and agency of some kind, that we are not in control of.
I feel like a perspective where the character and audience are the same needs a 4th person perspective because you're not solely the character but you're not just an audience member with no say of how the story plays out you can now change things in the story because now it's not 1st person telling 2nd while 3rds someone whose just witnessing it, it's now 3rd describing while 4th experiences it as not only the character but also the audience.
I just started watching and im on 1:24
what if instead of just cameras, you look through someone watching security monitors of the cameras
That actually a good idea
@@Handleneeds3ormorecharacters_- oh. Thanks!
Unrelated but i love your song slowblink from the kitten burst ost. I would love to see some more shoegazey stuff from you (after you finish this game of course)
This is gonna be a tad dense but,
I think the issue is you're attempting to use the semantics of other mediums in the semantic system of a videogame. First person, second person and third person means something massively different in the medium of videogames than it does in the medium of writing, film, theatre, etc. This is because it's impossible to accurately translate the semantics of one medium to the other, as it ignores the context of it. For videogames, the reason why people are so interested in the "Second Person" is ultimately the same reason people are interested in "breaking the fourth wall" in theatre, and that is, it's destroying fundamental pre concieved notions of how the medium works (In theatre the fourth wall), making the medium itself be shown. It's showing stuff that's simply taken for granted in the established fictional "world". However videogames being a more interactive, immersive medium, enables us to create new ways to do this in a different way other types of art do.
I honestly do believe first person - second person - third person is a really good and helpful way to clasify videogames, the 2nd person being somewhat analogous to showing what a videogame is as a medium as is a fourth wall break, except instead of theatre walls, it's more perceptual, more about sensation. I personally really like that videogames have their own unique way of talking about perspectives, as it opens it up to much more interesting ideas than if it just used the same sematics as film. Transcodification, as Lev Manovich called it, is a really important step in new technologies, however eventually we have to look at new technologies as a thing in itself, and that is when we can truly explore it, figuratively opening the semantic the black box, and letting the medium flourish into itself.
This is my take on this and of course, i am correct and cant be argued with.
1st person is the main character pov, so a 1st person game would have you as the main character. Easy enough.
2nd person is another character that is directly with the main or just in the plot in general. So someone following the main character would work.
3rd is someone outside the story looking in. For third person games, you are just yourself, looking into the story. So the cameras are third person, as it is something looking into the story with no involvement.