If you’re someone who enjoys point-of-view shifts in games, what do you like about them? Why do you enjoy them?
By point-of-view shifts, I’m referring to games in which the player can briefly change perspective to another character, whether that’s:
third-person - “Olivia walks through the door to the castle”
second-person - “you walk through the door to the castle” (but the “you” is Olivia rather than the PC)
I’m not thinking about extra or non-canon stories outside the game here - only writing that appears in the game itself.
Does it make a difference whether there are choices involved during these shifts, or simply some passages of writing from another perspective? Do you like your PC being “visible” or even taking actions in such scenes?
In general, these aren’t my thing - I prefer to learn more about a character or situation ingame by interacting with them myself rather than reading a cutaway scene outside my PC’s perspective - but I know a lot of people like them, so I’m curious to know more about what makes them popular.
Honestly can’t stand em. I remember being very frustrated by POV switches when I read the Wheel of Times series a while back. Some of those giant ass books barely gave Rand any screen time. I ended up skimming through chapters more and more as the series went on.
Edit - Now that I think about it… maybe occasional POV switches could be useful for showing the protags character growth? Maybe the protags less innocent or more aggressive than he used to be. Or maybe he has put on more muscle mass or lost weight due to starvation etc etc
As a person using these in a unique and different way than the norm, I will attempt to respond from both my writer’s perspective and my reader’s perspective.
Reader’s perspective: Absolutely - usually for the worse, because execution is often sloppy in my reader experiences.
Writer’s perspective: My PoV shifts are arc-centric and self-contained, so the choices included within must work within the arcs being explored.
This is how most PoV shifts I’ve experienced in IF are written.
Reader’s perspective - It all depends on the execution. Some are done well enough that my connection to the main narrative survives intact, but most cause disruption in one way or another.
Writer’s perspective - I don’t use these types of PoV changes in my project because there would be too much chaos if I tried. I use other writing devices, such as dream sequences to accomplish what these PoV changes often attempt to accomplish for others.
Reader’s perspective - Somehow, the tie to the MC should be there. This is the most common way, but there are other acceptable ties that can be created and used
Writer’s perspective - It is essential in my game that the MC is both visible to the reader and that the actions taken in these PoV shifts tie directly back to the MC.
Outside of my game, I question if they are as popular to readers as they are to authors. In my experience, authors use PoV shifts as the “easy way” out of a corner they often write themselves into.
ymmv.
I, personally, grew up with thrillers that have multiple POV characters acting on different parts of the plot, so that’s what I’m used to (and what I like to do), but using that in IF would require having multiple MCs and that… may or may not work, I’m not sure. I’ve enjoyed the games that do it (except one, but that wasn’t due to the POV switches) but I also am not the general audience.
I also do like, as a reader, seeing what NPCs make of what just happened with MC, but that shouldn’t be a very long section.
As a writer, I sometimes like writing intros or page-or-two-long intermissions from some other person’s perspective just because.
Gun to my head if i had to say whether i like or dislike them, i would say yes i enjoy them. With the caveat that they be used sparingly and at appropriate times. As for what about them i enjoy specifically, i enjoy the added insight, and therefore depth, into a character or situation they can bring.
For example, A from TWC(the wayhaven chronicles) or Blade from SoH(shepards of haven) are both characters that are very stoic and in control of themselves and this can lead some viewing them as bland or hard to read since they dont tend to emote very often/strongly but the PoV shifts (in the books themselves in TWC and in the blog for SoH) lets us peer past that. That leads to delightful insights like said stoic individuals are actually using their legendary self-control to not notice how the light is framing the MC’s face perfectly or how thats making them feel all tingly inside.
An example of how the shifted PoV can transform a scene would be the diner scene in the Fallen hero series when step first meets Ortega again. From steps PoV its an awkward, if not outright distressing, situation yes but nothing on the level of how it feels for Ortega. From their PoV its practically a paradigm shift(this pov is on the authors patreon).
In books, I don’t mind it. It all comes down to execution. As for interactive fiction, I don’t think it works for me. It feels wrong to make choices for other characters. That said, I don’t mind short intermissions, like a page or two (as long as I don’t have to make choices).
I think what I’ve seen in your game is a little different to the cutaway scenes I see in others. With your game it’s embedded into the game where the PC is seeing/experiencing other perspectives via magic, whereas I more often see games in which it’s simply a perspective shift (like a book with multiple points of view) or a cutaway scene (like the cutscenes about Saren in Mass Effect 1).
I think where I struggle most is with the ones that
Mm, these are the types of shifts that I’m not so keen on myself. I would rather see the new, exciting ways characters behave “firsthand” via my PC rather than getting the lowdown before my PC does (and would rather see a hint of how much they might like my PC in their behaviour with them). But it is interesting to hear how others feel about them as I know these character insights are some of the most popular types of perspective shifts.
I’d like to focus on in-game scenes when discussing here - I think extras/non-canon/out-of-game stories are a different kettle of fish and am thinking more about shifts that occur between chapters or scenes in the game itself
Interesting! I feel similarly - when I’ve created my PC and am playing as them, it can feel like a bit of a distraction to be moved to some other character (even if it’s a character I’m fond of).
PoV switches are fine within certain limits. I disconnect from caring about the story if I am forced to make an NPCs decisions for them. They don’t belong to me. They are not me. They decide on their own. If it relates to my own choices, then should have tags to what I chose then. Couple of decisions I would make in their view, if very limited to a couple is ok. If end up doing too much 3rd PoV from NPCs view of me in scene. I tend to always break and not care about story.
Even Star Rail had this. View someone else story in dreamscape. After a few I start just skipping and not reading. Outside of dreamscape, it happened again. I thought, who is going to share that detail with me?! Few choices later I skipped again. Didn’t care after.
Usually by third decision given is when I pull away from story. ITFO, Wayhaven, Bureau and few others do it well, that it doesn’t break me from story. One or two decisions that involved me in anothers perspective is the limit. Also depends on how long too. If its 5 pages or so, that’s a bit much and start not caring again.
I most likely won’t finish a story that IDC any longer on.
Tag PC choices if want NPCs to be similar is my thought on that idea. Might be easier to have player decide for NPCs but again, they don’t belong to me. If want the idea of me advising them, then that’s me being there. But NOT like Wil! … Shadowheart, Karlach and others where I could influence not MAKE their choice, Will. Yuck I hated that! I kinda stopped there. I hated it so much that IDC if everyone dies at that point.
As reader, In the context of Cog style; It is a direct skip I won’t read it and probably if there is choices I will skip reading there.
I role-play I don’t care know If Pedro loves eating donuts and How X that looks stoic has a sweet tooth.
I DON’T CARE THE TELL ME! SHOW IT IN AN INTERACTIVE SCENE WITH MEANING FOR MY CHARACTER OR DON’T
Fun fact I have used them as writer as intro a lot. Because I tend to start games or when player is newborn or in sci fi as a new created android or in a operation room as cyborg etc…
So only way of doing introduction is through lenses of others.
About third person and multiple characters on it I use them in my two children IF stories and I noticed kids prefer it.
It is more easy to understand for them.
So would that make me an hypocrite?
No, It is simply the media of if of create YOUR character makes for me totally horrible that you put me in the mind of others destroying my role play.
If the game is not focused on one character and it is more fixed Then it is okay.
Normally I enjoy these scenes. As Long as they are short and I do not have to make choices in them.
For me they are a break, a little part where I snoop into another characters mind. I like them even more If they reflect choices I made as the MC. So I can enjoy the scene once more, but without making hard decisions. I can relax in this scenes because I do not have to do something and can see, If my character is seen by others the way I Imagine them.
So as long as it is just two or three paragraphs without choices it’s all fine for me.
I had one example where I really liked a pov, that lasted longer and even involved choices for the NPC, but that was a extremly Special occasion, where the MC was kidnapped and rescued by their Friends, that one was very good written and I Loved to see, how the group was worried and what they did.
I like it a lot in static fiction. Jordan and Martin both do fun things with it, where we get to see how the world looks through antagonists’ eyes etc.
In IF, I generally find it immersion-breaking and don’t like it. By giving the reader info that the MC doesn’t have, it weakens the illusion that I’m making the choices this character would. The choices feel richer when I can pretend that they’re informed only by the info the character would have at that point. (Of course they’re not really; we as readers always have more info than the MC. But a cutscene breaks the magic for me.)
reasonably short - as with any story in CS, large passages of text without a choice, particularly of a secondary character, is usually not that interesting
either contribute to the story or show something that wouldn’t be visible/necessarily important to my own character
can be skipped (useful for repeated playthroughs)
I like that they can show a character’s mindset or viewpoint more effectively than my MC would get. Seeing how a character views my MC can be quite interesting but only if it varies depending on the stats/characteristics or choices.
I would find choices in these POV shifts to be quite jarring though, especially in second-person. As with anything of course, it depends on how the execution.
StarRail did that. You take over someone else’s viewpoint outside of Dreamscape. (Penacony) It does ‘you’ despite being someone else. I hated that. I skipped through a bunch at that point.
There is also a WIP that kept everything third person. You chose what you do but stays third. After several pages, I didn’t care if a wolf would eat me as a toddler by that point. I got sick of watching from the outside. May as well watch TV then or read novels.
Oh what a good topic! It’s cool reading people’s responses to this. I’ll throw my two cents in, since I have two brief POV switches in my game.
From my “writer” perspective: I have one of each and haven’t had complaints. Which doesn’t mean I won’t eventually lol - but for what it’s worth, I’ve done a few things that I think help the POV switches to be enjoyable (or at least tolerable, for players who dislike switches on principle).
The one without choices is so short it doesn’t even require a page_break. It also gives a big piece of information to the player, so it’s purposeful plot-wise, and it involves an outside character noting a characteristic of MC based on their chosen background (everyone likes seeing their MC is unique, right?).
The one with choices I did my best to again, keep as short as possible. I also framed so MC’s still “there” sort of… You’re playing as another POV while MC tries to remember that they’re not actually this person you’re playing as. It’s tricky, and time will tell if I’ve pulled it off - but I like to think it gives the player more of an investment in the scene than a standard POV-switch.
From a reader perspective, I hate about 75% of POV switches It’s mental work to orient myself to a whole new perspective, so I’m happier if the switch is to a character I’m already familiar with, or if I’m able to retain some connection to the previous scene, or if it’s very short. I relied on the latter two for the ones I wrote into my game. I think @Eiwynn does a great job in Patchwerks of using the second option. By making it a game mechanic of sorts, you stay very connected to the main story through the switch. Ironically, I love most POV-switches that take you into the RO’s thoughts about MC, but have none in my own game because they’re just not necessary. Maybe I’ll write some bonus stories like that at some point to scratch the itch.
I think they’re good for a small change of pace when your character is preoccupied. I did one in Aura Clash but only if you fail to escape the prison cells. It received positive feedback so I think people can enjoy them under the right pretenses and as long as it’s not stealing the spotlight or causing cliffhangers.
Especially the cliffhanger part. I hated that about perspective shifts in books. It kept me reading though so I suppose it’s good for a product, just bad for enjoyment.
I absolutely love seeing different POVs in non-interactive media, but I could take it or leave it in IF projects. When they’re done well, I like them, but I usually only read them the first time. As others have mentioned, they need to be kept short, unless there’s a very compelling reason to make them longer. Personally, I think different POVs work best as prologue/introduction which is the only one I have in my game. I really enjoy getting other cast members POVs of important plot events/character arc moments, but I think these are usually best left to Tumblr blogs or Patreons.
As for choices in other POVs, I don’t like them unless I’m making a choice about my MC. If the POV scene is about an NPC observing my MC, I don’t mind there being choices about what my MC is doing/how they look/how stressed they appear/ect. If MC is speaking at all I’d prefer to choose what they say.
(I can also give more specific examples of POVs I think worked and one’s that didn’t if people are interested.)
As someone who writes them in every one of my games, I absolutely love them. I got used to them by reading romance novels, and it was always the best part for me—knowing that after reading the FMC’s POV, I’d get the MMC’s perspective and discover exactly how he feels about the MC and what he’s hiding. It made me feel like a fly on the wall, privy to those little secrets and longing moments the FMC isn’t aware of. She’s thinking he hates her, but in reality, just being in the same room with her takes his breath away. But he can’t show those emotions because, well, she used to date his best friend, and wouldn’t it be breaking the bro code to have feelings for her?
Sorry, I lost track there. I think the best approach is to make them optional when possible. As for the choices, I view them as all being valid; they’re just there to add a bit of interactivity. The choices are about the MC and as the reader, you’re not really making choices for that NPC.
I do adore this in Rien Gray’s Fatal Fidelity romance series, and have enjoyed it in a lot of books (though not when it totally gives away a plot mystery!)…
It doesn’t always feel as fabulous for me when it’s an interactive story, maybe because I like feeling immersed in what the PC knows? But I have often seen your scenes mentioned as ones that people really like so I think you are probably very tuned into giving players what you enjoy yourself and therefore they love it
They could work, but in general I’d rate them meh in general. There are many ways to show that what MC sees might not be everything there is to it, and switches of PoV generally just ruin the intrugue for me.
I liked Jun better when we saw his trail of carnage, when MC dreamt about a wolf with yellow eyes. His PoVs quickly got annoying because they were too obvious in wha they did and showed too much information too quickly. Same goes for Wayhaven’s PoV switches for the villain characters (these really ruined Sin as one for me because everything was answered too quickly and simply) or Seven’s PoV switch once MC leaves the scene - it just spelled out something that was already obvious to me.
It’s mental work to orient myself to a whole new perspective, so I’m happier if the switch is to a character I’m already familiar with, or if I’m able to retain some connection to the previous scene, or if it’s very short. I relied on the latter two for the ones I wrote into my game. I think