What Would A Second Person Backrooms Game Look Like? 

I think you should make it so that the entity has a roaming state in which it just roams the world until the player comes into it's fov. And make some Minecraft-like cave noises so when you're not being chased it makes the player even more unsettled. It could also be cool if you add maybe a passive entity that appears here and there and then when the aggressive entity comes around the passive one will get scared and teleport away or something. Also I think adding in procedurally generated safe rooms would be awesome; you could add in some dead hazmat bros with keycards on them to different safe rooms. I've been working with Unity for a few years now and I think adding in a simple prefab containing dead scientist and safe room and then having OnAwake() change the locations of both of them to be in random places would be neat. There's so many different ways you could go about adding meat to this experience that would make it awesome to play. And i dunno maybe go for that infinite survive gametype or have like a slenderman gametype where you need to collect all of the notes or something to find the exit. Happy Coding! :)

Imagine this in VR. That would be a serious case of brown trouser time as you have a literal outer body experience.

That 2nd person mechanic is a super cool idea for this, because you have some idea of when the entity can see you and when it is still chasing you. If you were purely 1st person, you'd need to either keep turning around or rely on audio cues to know if it was still chasing you. I think you could really expand on this mechanic and have different behavior for the different types of entities or even change how it works if you have multiple entities chasing a player. Cheers!

Multiplayer for this would be insane. If you are in a group and the entity starts to chase you then everyone will get the same camera perspective. It would be chaos as they all try to figure out who is who.

the 2nd person camera angle reminds me of a game called, "No One Lives Under the Lighthouse," where the first time you encounter the monster it sceams out of the blue and starts charging towards the player. i really think you should check it out if you want some more inspiration for your game cause its great with it's scares.

I think adding movement to the mouth when it's in view would really add to that "enemy perspective"

Amazing! I absolutely love the idea. I'd suggest having some sort of player goal as well? Perhaps, being a scientist, having to research various things in the backrooms? I'm looking forward for the new things to come!

Dude your videos are amazingly entertaining. I really don't expect to find content like this these days!

Honestly I think that even when the entity isn’t chasing you the camera could still be second person (or at least have that allusion). You could have it so that the camera looks like it’s peering at you from behind walls and stuff. Admittedly transitions may be hard but not impossible, and the player may be surprised a little when the camera suddenly starts to chase them.

There was a part in the Wolverine PS3 game where the perspective shifts and you're viewing Wolverine from the sniper scope of a sniper who's trying to kill him while you're controlling Wolverine, and I would probably say that's the most striking example of a second person perspective.

What if you could switch your perspective back to the player for a few seconds? So that you don't get annoyingly stuck on a wall behind a wall when escaping

I enjoyed the game "No one ilves under the light house" a lot, which user a similar 2nd person perspective when you are getting chased down by a monster. So it's great to see more people do this as well and try new things with it.

Another idea for a second person horror setting would be to have the protagonist entering some kind of facility while being monitored by the antagonist using cameras in every room. Players would see the protagonist through monitors in surveillance room and additionally, they would also be able to see the actions of the antagonist (pushing buttons, activating traps, releasing monsters), which can give the players time to react and steer their character to safety.

This looks interesting! I look forward to see how it develops :) Also, the Bacteria monster doing the runway model walk at the end was so silly xD

6:58 Me:" Work it, darling! Own the catwalk! Alright, now pose, and turn. YES! You. Are. A. Queen!"

There's a game that does this second person from the monster perspective super well called nothing lives under the lighthouse, its a ridiculously underrated game and one of my fav horror games of all time

Awesome Work! Second Person Perspective is Incredible, simple, and a new Frontier. Just 'Focus' the Camera on the Player Avatar no matter where the Camera is 'Mount'ed. We designed a camera system around this concept and using it for Superheroes.

This is very reminiscent of three games I know of. Rayman 2: The Great Escape has a sequence where a monster is chasing the player down a slide, and the perspective switches to the inside of the monster's mouth, with teeth basically incasing the fleeing Rayman as the monster slowly closes in. No One Lives Under The Lighthouse is an indie horror game where you're on a small island with only a few locations to go to, primarily centered around the titular lighthouse. Occassionally when you're outside, a giant spider of some kind will chase the player, and once again it switches to this perspective as you control the player running away while looking through the eyes of the monster, its massive legs reaching out in front of it, with this loud thumping music playing in time with its steps as it hunt you down. Driver: San Francisco stars a cop who has the ability to essentially jump out of his own body and take control of other drivers, a power he uses to try to foil the plot of a terrorist. There's a section where you're "controlling" a henchman tailing you, as you drive. You're actually controlling your own car, but watching from the perspective of the henchman's car following you. It becomes a chase mission, as you have to drive through checkpoints with a tight timer ticking down untill eventually the next event happens, but I won't go into spoilers about that.

Cool concept and exploration of a game you got there, I'm curious if you've seen Nick Robinson's video on 2nd perspective and how it was utilised in driver san francisco.

You nailed it! That perspective is super unsettling!

This is actually a REALLY interesting gameplay mechanic. I can't believe I haven't even heard of like a folklore type of monster that once you meet each others gaze, you're instantly looking at yourself in their perspective until you escape. Well done man! stumbled on the video by accident, love the idea! wishing you the best on this game, from one dev to another :)

You could hide in a ‘safe room’ of sorts, as you mentioned early in the video.

Nice concept! It would be cool if you stuck with 2nd person all the way through, like maybe as the researcher you can deploy surveillance cameras as you move, and they are the only way you can see your own movements until the monster sees you

It reminds me of a mechanic in Siren: Blood Curse where you can use a power to look through your both your own eyes and an enemy’s via splitscreen. I wonder if something similar would work here, where you occasionally can see through the entity’s view and use that to get an idea of where it’s going or if you’re in danger

This moment when you think that you came up with fresh idea and someone already did it. There's nearly 3 years old game that have identical chases it is called "No one lives under the lighthouse", its one of best indie horrors ever

Really nice to follow the train of thoughts. Also I love the pacing, it's steady but not crazy fast like it's the fashion these days. Thanks for the great video!

I think having the character blink in first person every 5 seconds for 1/2 a second (think like the SCPS game mechanics with 173) could help facilitate the transition between 1st and 2nd person. For example, you walk into 2nd person range of the monster but the view does not immediately switch until the next blink. That would be suspenseful every time you blink, especially if the monster is hard to spot on your own.

This is as faithful an adaptation of a second person camera perspective as I've seen. Cool starting point! (Horror is such a good genre pick.) When I saw the title I was initially thinking second person narrative, and was imagining a story told about you by a witness (or witnesses). I imagined some form of amnesia could justify the need for it, and the player could make choices that effect how the story "played" out. The game designer could play around with some fun themes, like if there were multiple witnesses they might remember your character differently in attitude or appearance. Depending on the kind of story / gameplay you could also have second person camera perspective, though in that case it would probably be best to have "gaps" where your character isn't controlled *unless* in interaction with another player.

The combination of film and indie video game making is amazing. I really hope the best for you and your channel!

This was a concept made popular in the Siren video game series whereas the only way you could tell where the enemies were was to fine-tune your mind into seeing through their eyes. Excellent idea as a lot of video games forget about this concept.

Hmmm I don't like the idea of hiding spots but maybe if you go behind a wall so you can't see yourself from the entity's perspective then you go back to normal? Seems like it would be cool!

I feel like some animation to the teeth would definitely help make it more terrifying, like maybe they have a bit of goopy movement to them, or they move in and out from the center of the camera to give the idea that it's breathing heavily as it's trying to catch up to you. If you're looking for ways to escape it I think traps would be perfect. Maybe you start with 3 or something but as you go on you find corpses and car wreaks with different kinds of traps, with yours being the most advanced and most effective because you're a researcher and the other being more makeshift in nature, with the only way to get more advanced traps being from other researcher corpses or safe rooms

I appreciate the effort you put into the live action portion of your vids. 👍

That actually reminds me of a mission in the PS2 game Jak 2. The mission was called "Blow up Ammo at the Fortress", and throughout the mission Jak is being chased by an automatic security tank. During a couple of sections, the camera switches to the Tank's point of view, while the player continues to control Jak, and try to escape the tank by platforming out of the way of it's cannon shots.

This is really cool. It reminds me if what they did with Forbidden Siren on PS2, having you avaid enemies by tapping into their eyes.

the camera change aspect is mind blowing , nice video and channel

I love this idea and I can definitely tell it’s inspired from “No One Lives Under the Lighthouse” And even if it isn’t, it’s amazing that you came up with the same idea

This is brilliant! It could be an inspiration for future horror games!

Creepy pasta indeed! Excited to see how this turns out

The monster POV is insane! If the head slowly weaved around when it walked & made sound waves when it screamed, yeah, that would be chilling! The entity should have a few states: chase, search, & patrol, giving the researcher the chance to hide or escape when farther out of view. The swap back to the researcher should have a fogged mask from running after the encounter & involve a heart rate / cool off time to get rid of the fog. The fog could build with a run/walk/stop function - causing difficulty seeing, condensate, & occasionally create creature like streaks in the visor. Objectives would be cool to round out the game mechanics: hints around the level to look for items to use to clip back to the real world. Straight up nightmare fuel, terrifying and inspiring! I've often thought of "what would be a good backrooms themed game?" & I think your POV concept is spectacular!

the best representation of a 2nd person game imo is the chase part of driver san fransico. nick robinson has a very interesting content about that game.

I don't know if I'm too late yet or not, as I haven't gone through your more recent videos, but I had a thought on this Second Person Perspective and the shift between the exploration and chase phases of the game; you mention this Entity is believed to have something to do with the black mold that appears in certain places in the Backrooms. What if instead of going into First person perspective for the exploration, any time you were out of direct site of the Entity, the camera attached to an area near a wall/floor/ceiling infected with the mold. The implications of the mold having an awareness of the player's presence, and the switch in perspective to the Entity would imply a shared awareness between the mold and the creature. This would also allow for better movement and escape around corners, allowing the player to see past a certain point (or justify why a player can't see a particular hallway or choke point intended to allow the Entity to catch up and force encounters with the player). You would, at points, need to have some mold that could see the locations of other mold, and snap to those points based upon player distance, but by doing that you end up with an almost inverse of 5 Nights at Freddy's.

Imagine a dialogue. You are the first person. The person you talk to is the 2nd. 3rd person is maybe a bystander, someone not directly related to the conversation. So the monsters perspective is the only way this can be a 2nd person game. Just like the cloud guy in super Mario 64 holding the camera, a second scientist would still only make it a 3rd person perspective.

This is still a 1st person game, you need to give the monster a personality like it is playing with us. Basically if you escape have it go into observe mode for lets say 60 seconds, during which it learns by crawling along the ceiling closely following the player quicker then normal. If you escape twice then when it enters observe mode it will begin to cover parts of its mouth to obstruct vision. The more you escape the more it covers till there is only darkness. You can actually do a lot of cool things with this concept. You divide the world into maze and chase segments with a hallway between them. The game starts with observe and the fangs barely on screen. This shows a more passive intelligent state. You find a key by the door for the next section. You pick up the key, open the door, and the monster drops down. This door leads into the chase segment, it is mostly hallways that loop into other hallways but if you keep going north you'll get to the door to the next section. (Previous doors to past areas are perma locked.) In this maze section you find the key immediately but before you pick it up the monster rushes you, knocks you down, takes the key and hides it. You see it move abnormally fast and where it drops the key. When it returns to the player it goes to a set distance away and slowly creeps closer as time passes. When enough time has passed it will kill the player. During this though it will notice you can see through its eyes once you get the key and start covering parts of its mouth with tendrils. In the next chase segment it will cover parts of its mouth with tendrils. After this you enter the final section, a maze section. You see it drop the key... but it is always looking in your direction and on hunt mode. It is a combination of observe and chase where instead of waiting X time it will only ever get so far from the player and will always move faster then walking speed but slower then running, every bad turn you make is a chance for it to catch and kill you. All while using tendrils to obstruct various parts of your vision at random. There is a time limit though before the monster covers its mouth almost completely. It doesn't instant kill you but since you can barely see what is happening it will catch you. The catch is the maze segments are all the same maze segment layout but the key/door are in different locations. This ultimately gives the player a feeling of unsure familiarity and like they are going in big circles all while the monster is learning and they are running out of time. The final door has a monster behind it which leaps out and attacks the monster you see from. This ends with the new monster "eating" the other one and you see only darkness. Then you see from the eyes of this 2nd monster which is a different design looking at the player. This monster which has a smaller mouth so you can't see to the side much. The player runs through the door, after a fade and roar as things fade we return to the normal world and unlock hard mode. Hard mode takes place after the ending where we thought we immediately left. The player to leave had to survive the hard mode monster which is otherwise functionally identical the only difference is behind the door is a way out and the camera follows us out into the normal world.

I like the idea of it being a suspenseful horror where you’re watching from the perspective of the baddie. But the whole time. You see them peering at you from a window, around a corner. You see them shuffle and move their hands. Maybe stroke the window. If the character looks at them they hide and creep around. You know the baddie is there but the character doesn’t but you can try to interact with the baddie and see how it responds

the killer view take on this is actually kind of sick. i think one of the scariest creature designs is a creature that the player/audience cant see in its entirety, but they know its there watching and following. that being said, it would be cool if as soon as the player is within view of the creature, it swaps straight to the second person view before you even get to see what the creature looks like, that way theres more dread in the fact that you are watching yourself get chased by something

Would make for an interesting horror film. The monster is called "Sight Stealer" and when the characters encounter it, they lose their own vision and see from the perspective of the monster. In other words, they can get to watch themselves die. Or we can see how hard it is to run away when you don't really see what's in front of you.

this instantly reminds me of Rayman 2, where in the Cave of Bad Dreams there's a sliding chase that happens, and the camera changes to the inside the mouth of what's chasing you. Seeing myself get closer and closer to the camera as a kid as I messed up always freaked me out and is probably the thing that stuck out to me the most in that game. So seeing you recreate that is really cool

If you really want to run with the second person feel maybe add section where there’s just monsters on the wall like the smilers that hide in the dark Maybe add a faint glow, heavy breathing, and up and down movement to make it feel more alive while also making it hard to see the player added an extra challenge element into the game

This is a great and terrifying concept. I would love to see more game developers try cool and new mechanics like this.

I'd add static fade out effect when the POV shifts, with some earie sound effects, also, have you played Dead by Daylight? Maybe there are obstacles you can place in the way behind you, like a ladder that's leaning against a wall, (walk under when chased to trigger) or a bucket of goo, you can kick, (walk through) for example. Also, I'd add that buzzing static noise that's in the backrooms, until being chased. Also the floor seams textureless. Needs a texture. Great stuff, looking fwd to see where it goes. (+1 sub)

Pretty cool. One idea which pops up into mind: when monster loose lien of sight to player, camera could switch back to first person. I would switch back to second person whenever player sees a monster.

I reckon you should go more into the bacteria element of the creature. To have the creature disapear into the mould of the walls, be able to travel through the walls (kinda like in splatoon) and then reappear would give the creature a unique way of travel that adds to the lore of the world and would probably result in the creature appearing more.

This reminds me of Forbidden Siren with the Kamera stuff

Adding a mechanic that can disrupt the entity movement would basically have the same effect as giving the player a weapon, that is not very good for a horror game, so a escape option like a fog grenade to blind the monster is better than a trip wire to stall the monster

That’s a bang-up idea, great work!

a way to hide would be pretty cool, because there's the rush of finding like a locker or a hole where the monster can't enter, also maybe sending the monster far away from the player when you already escaped

My ideal second-person game would be a co-op game where two players see through the other's eyes. They would obviously need a way to communicate, and could have a button to call and direct the other player. While particularly designed around two players, I think it would be cool to have a singleplayer mode that takes more advantage of the "calling and directing" feature.

Maybe during the perspective switch you could have the lights turn off, then back on, it would be less jarring, and you could use a good sound effect on it, also maybe some amount of animation to the inside of the mouth and maybe a slightly higher FOV for the player and monster could be pretty nice, even if the monsters FOV is just trapped in the mouth

I remember watching someone play a horror game and one of the parts in the game (like here in your game) the player was being chased but the camera was on the creature chasing you

This is a very good realization of an awesome idea; and it brings to horror a new D./PoW. I hope for more to come.

A toc/command center would be cool, you’re looking through the eyes of the person watching the cameras setup throughout the back rooms, but still controlling the subject shown in the cameras

Aight so imagine this. A backrooms game where you're looking through the camera on the hazmat guy. You do NOT control the haz guy, instead you type commands/have some preset commands to make him do. He'd have his own stats that would determine things like stealth, fear levels, even hunger if you wanted. For more complex commands you would have to give it a short typed command like 'rip the wall paper' or 'use the crowbar' while most things like doors would be a simple 'interact with X hot key'. As the 'scientist' giving the commands you'd have a list of things for him to accomplish. He'd have his own sort of AI, like auto running from monsters, or trying to fight it if that character is 'brave enough'. Hell, you could have multiple people who you could rotate between cams and give orders to. And maybe have some events where the cam cuts off of a character but their voice still comes over. Or the voice cuts, but the cam is still there. All of a sudden you see one start running but has no communications and can't receive commands. That's a second person game I'd LOVE to play.

I remember seeing a video about someone trying to figure out what a 2nd person game would be like, and they brought up this one mission in a driving game with a special ability to take control of most AI drivers, where you are driving the protagonist's car from the perspective of another car chasing them. It's nice to see a few more second person games being developed, where instead of "I did this" or "They did that", it's "You did this", like the definition of 2nd person.

I guess it woudl've been cool to make non-hostile entity watch player all the time peeking from around the corner, and when player approaches the view point (or disspears from view), you switch to another camera. Then, you could actually spawn hostile entity when camera switches and watch as a player runs away from it from the second-person. I guess the closer you move to the current viewer, it might slight more and more behind the corner. I guess it opens up a lot of gameplay opportunity because not only you can keep the second view constantly, add some jumpscares when camera switches, but also use these different viewpoints as a way to conceal some hidden paths from the player, so game is also about finding the right viewer. Considering that camera will switch when you approach the viewer it's a simple gameplay loop with an option to throw player off with spawing of hostile entity. PLUS, not being able to control the camera precisely might make a game really confusing adding to the confusing nature of the backrooms.

I feel like there should be an objective, maybe you need to scan a certain amount of X on a particular floor before you're able to escape to the next floor, or you should maybe implement a simple loot system adding a risk reward element to the exploring... Maybe you have to manage 3 recources and you can only carry a X amount... Maybe work towards a crafting system (hear me out) a s simple one, 3 or 4 recources to craft 1. a defensive item (something to stun the entity or something) 2. a healthpack or something of that nature 3. an proactive item (maybe something offensive or a speed bonus) and make it so the player has to really consider which items to craft in order to "clear" a floor. This way you have a reason to explore, a reward for doing well, agency over when you "clear" the floor (again maybe scanning key items or collecting enough crafting materials) Also I feel like the fixed 3'rd person cam would be a cool way too keep things pseudo 2nd person, making it so you always feel watched... The 1st person perspective takes away from the whole concept imo... Having the fixed cams is a nice call back to old skool horror games and if you make it so that the camera starts moving you know you're being followed and eventually chased... Hope this is helpful... Keep it up!

This was featured in Rayman's Cave of Bad Dreams, as well as Ratchet & Clank 3 when you get chased by that monster

You could interact with items in the room, I don't remember what all is there so I'm going to use a file cabinet as an example. So you knock over the file cabinet or whatever to trip the monser and give you room to escape.

Pallets and random objects you can pull in front of it's path would be good. Maybe a door to give you some time to breathe as the entity gets faster. Or you could even make it so that it gets slowed down by cornering.

Crafting, making campfires heal u, making bear traps stun him, and a radar that's shows you the map and where he is for 6 seconds before breaking

One thing that would be cool is during the camera switch you add an effect where if your player is close to the wall you have a highlight on the screen where the wall is. Like in a fps where you get shot and you get a red indicator that points in the direction you got shot from, except walls instead of bullets.

Maybe the entity can have a telegraphed leap (once it starts a leap it can’t change direction, and locked to where the player was when it started charging the leap) some randomness to the entity would make the cheeses even more thrilling

The backrooms really terrifies me, but this is such a well made game! Good b

I can't wait to see your channel grow huge in da future!

I can’t remember right now but there is a driving game where part it is in the first person perspective of the cop chasing you. You have to drive your car looking through their dashboard, which is behind you in the context of the game but on the game camera you are infront

Finally! Someone else who understands the concept of 2nd person!!

You were actually right about what a second person game was in the first video. First and third person perspectives are based on their meanings in writing. Third person are words like he, she, they, and first person are words like I and me. The perspectives in games reflect that where in third person games you see the character like it's just someone else and in first person games you are the player. In writing, second person is you and your so it would make sense for it to be from the perspective of the person playing the game since instead of the player being him or me, it's you. Hopefully I explained it well.

there's a segment in No One Lives Under the Lighthouse that had a similar concept. It really caught me off guard when it happened and was genuinely terrifying.

There should be like a glitchy VHS effect when the camera is about to switch to give some warning. Great work btw

sorry my hazmat rig was all weird when u imported it, it was one of my first models. (its kind of bad tbh, but it blew up on sketchfab) not sure how id fix it in the future, thanks for using it tho!

thats like the boss fight from ratchet and clank up your arsenal with Momma Tyhrranoid. After your first dmg phase you need to run too another area and see yourself from the perspectiv of the boss.

setting the perspective on the monster hunting the player in first person while they are still in third person is a nice visual gimmick that´s rarely done, but still not second person because it is literally impossible. And I don't mean literally in a figuratively way.

4:46 is a mood ngl

I have some idea to make camera transition more flowless. Maybe you should add some blink animation from time to time, and then if monster is close enough, you can switch pov while eyes are closed during blink. I try to imagine how it will feel and I am already sceared to blink.

hey man :) adding viewbobbing of some sort would definitely make it feel more immersive

You could give an indicator to the closest safe room during chase and have to get there to lose the entity

The swap between first and third person felt a bit jarring to me, Maybe there could be patches of black mold on some ceilings, walls, or even floors that can all watch you. As you move between different rooms and halls you get strange camera angles that even will move to follow you, to a limited extent. Maybe a room with multiple patches will swap angles as you move around to show you its not random angles but actually these patches of mold. A semi fixed pov might be hard to get an idea of your surroundings, so the researcher could have a camera that will give you a pop up of your most recent picture in a corner of the screen, giving you a better view of an area while still keeping it suffocating and claustrophobic. And it can still swap to the monster when it begins to chase

Here's an idea: you control your character in third person until you reach a place where the entity can find you. As soon as you enter the entity's pov, it switches to second person. So if you enter a room and all of a sudden you're in second person, you know it's the entity looking at you. That sounds scary as hell imo, and you can then decide to immediately head in another direction, unless you need to keep going in that direction and closer to the entity.

So, the common trope of getting into a hiding place really works here. Think about it, in most games you're left wondering "Did they see me enter this", but in 2nd person perspective, you know that answer. The question now is: Can you get into a locker when you yourself cannot see the locker? This could either be frustrating, or a really good game mechanic. I'd have to see how it plays.

Im not really interested in all of your videos but i subscribed to support you because of the immense effort and quality you put in your videos

Happy I stumbled upon this video its really good

You could remove the phase when it's the players pov and add a minimap that marks the players position, but not the entities. Then the entity roams around while the player tries to navigate from a to b using the minimap, until they suddenly appear on the screen and need to run away

Some animation with the mouth of the entity and some angry roars while Adding more movement speed of the entity would make it a true second person panic fest.

You have struck gold with this concept, run with it!

Something I suggest is adding head bobbing it makes the experience feel more real. I have added it to my game, And it works really well.

I've seen a game do this before, called "it lives under the lighthouse" or something like that. I'm sure you could draw inspiration from that.

Reminds me of the Driver 3 moment when the camera chases you down from the view of their car and you have to drive through traffic to escape

The from the mouth of the monster view reminds of me of Rayman 2, Theres a small part where a enemy chases you down a sliding section of the game and the camera is showing its teeth around it

Your videos are soo good and so are your games!

man that's such a cool concept another game called no one lives under the light house did that for one of it's chase scenes, it's such a mind fuck of a game mechanic