First-Person Views

Games where players are shown game worlds as if they were inside them.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Games that present game worlds to players can do this in various ways.

Games where players control individual game elements and move them in the game environment often present that environment to the players as the game element would "see" the environment. This First-Person View then lets players receive natural feedback to movement in the environment in a way that corresponds to the feedback one receives when doing the same movement in the real world.

Examples

As the name of the genre indicates, First-Person Shooters such as Counter-Strike and the Crysis, Doom, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead series, Portal series, Quake, and Unreal Tournament all make use of First-Person Views. Later installments of the Elder Scrolls series and the Fallout series have adopted the point of view as well, as have the sandbox game Minecraft.

Racing games such as the Need for Speed series and Gran Turismo series often allow players to switch between first- and third-person views.

Live Action Roleplaying Games such as Assassin, Conspiracy for Good, Dragonbane, and Trenne Byar have First-Person Views since players literally represent characters in them.

Using the pattern

First-Person Views give players a view of the Game World from within it, and the primary design choices for game designers involve choosing how players can control what they are viewing and if the presentation players are given uses human-like vision capabilities or augmented capabilities, such as infrared, radar, or night vision.

Since First-Person Views do not provide Game State Overviews in the way Third-Person Views or God Views do, they are sometimes augmented with different forms of indicators, primarily Status Indicators, to compensate. Another way to provide more information for players is to have wider field of view than humans have by using fisheye views, up to the point of giving 360 degree view. In any case, First-Person Views provide Fog of War.

First-Person Views can also be used to provide Public Information which is focused upon a specific part of the Game World and can also by used to give Spectators a sense of Spatial Immersion.

Not too surprising, First-Person Views are not directly compatible with God Views and Third-Person Views, with an exception for Third-Person Views when mirrors, cameras, or other devices (e.g. the portals in the Portal series) allow Avatars to see themselves. Given that players may have personal preferences on what kind of view they may want to have or that some views are advantageous in some gameplay situations, it is quite common to provide players with a Freedom of Choice between First-Person Views and Third-Person Views (reasons why one may not want to let players have this freedom can be that it may ruin Surprises.

Interface Aspects

The choice of Focus Loci can affect with types of views of Game Worlds are possible, so the design of First-Person Views should be done in relation to the design of a game's Focus Loci.

Consequences

Since First-Person Views provide players with feedback similar to that receive when performing movement in the real world, these views support Spatial Immersion and Dexterity-Based Actions such as Maneuvering and Aim & Shoot in the Game World.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Line of Sight, Surprises

with Game Worlds

Detective Structures

with Third-Person Views

Freedom of Choice

Can Modulate

Aim & Shoot, Avatars, Game Worlds, Maneuvering

Can Be Instantiated By

Dedicated Game Facilitators, Live Action Roleplaying

Can Be Modulated By

Vision Modes

Possible Closure Effects

-

Potentially Conflicting With

God Fingers

History

An updated version of the pattern First-Person Views that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.