Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we frame character choices when writing stories for games—especially the kinds of stories we hope motivate players. Specifically, I’ve been stuck on the question of perspective: Should I write my storyboards and narrative in first person or third person? Do I use “me” or “you”?
To be clear, I’m not just talking about what the player will read or hear in the game. I mean the entire scripting and storyboarding process—the invisible layer, the notes and internal writing that define how I, as the developer, think about the player and the character. Using “me” pulls the player, the character, and myself—the writer—into the same perspective. Using “you” separates my perspective from theirs.
And of course, some games require other approaches entirely. In a city builder or social sim, for example, “they” might be more appropriate—treating the character as a unit you observe and influence, but don’t inhabit.
For this article, I’m focusing on a specific kind of game story: the ones where we want the player to feel a sense of ownership over the character. In Floppy/Write, I’ve been writing everything from a first-person “I/me” perspective. It feels like the only fit for a voiceless character—the thoughts and observations land more naturally, as if they belong to the player.
By contrast, in Monacan City, I wrote using a “they/them” perspective that also occasionally doubled as “you.” That character did have a voice, and I felt more separated from them as a creator. The story felt more like I was watching their life unfold rather than living it with them.
The more I write for Floppy/Write, the more I notice moments where I want to switch perspective. I’m writing a lot of environmental descriptions—things the player character will see, feel, and react to—and that’s helping me plan out story beats, puzzle setups, and even UI needs. Sometimes I want to write, “You see a flyer pinned to the pole,” because it feels clearer from a design standpoint. It’s more like an instruction: “Player, here’s what you’re meant to notice.”
But I’ve stuck to first-person so far, mostly out of habits built from writing rules learned in middle school. Part of me worries that switching perspective midway through will create a ton of extra work.
Still, I keep coming back to this: when designing observational puzzles, the perspective I use in my internal writing affects how I think through the scene. First-person (“A camera sits slightly above the metal molding swiveling towards me as I pick up pace”) lets me judge whether the setup actually feels intuitive. It gives me a stronger sense of presence. If I’m writing as “me,” I’m walking around in the character’s shoes. I can better tell if something would catch my attention. It’s a more empathetic frame.
Writing as “you,” on the other hand, gives me a bit more control—but also assumes that control will land. That when I say “you feel unsettled,” the player will feel unsettled. And I’m not sure I want to lean on that assumption. There’s a risk of disconnect. The first-person approach lets me test how much a scene naturally guides attention and emotion, without presuming too much about how the player will respond.
So for now, I’m still writing Floppy/Write from a first-person perspective—but I’m starting to think more deliberately about when and why that might change. Perspective isn’t just a writing choice. It’s a design tool, a lens for testing empathy, clarity, and agency. And maybe switching perspectives isn’t a flaw—it’s a sign that I’m considering the player as a real presence in the world I’m building.
This question of perspective—me vs. you vs. they—is something I’ve seen handled in many ways across different games, and it always tells you something about how the creators view the player’s relationship to the world.
In Disco Elysium, the perspective is technically third-person, but the narrative voice fractures into all these internal monologues that create a weird chorus of first-person impressions. It’s a masterclass in how to collapse “you,” “I,” and “they” into one barely-held-together point of view. That kind of fragmentation wouldn’t make sense in every game, but it shows how valuable it can be to blur the lines between narrator and character when you’re trying to communicate unstable identity or perception. Even Outer Wilds, a game with very little written dialogue or interiority, succeeds at making the player feel like the protagonist by stripping away most language around perspective altogether—it just quietly hands you the mystery and trusts you to care.
Alan Wake is an example of what happens when a game leans heavily into the “I” voice—literally. It’s written like a novel being lived in real time, and that first-person narration locks the player into Wake’s head. But even though the game says “I,” it never really feels like you are Alan. The voiceover is more like watching someone try to explain their breakdown while dragging you through it. It’s immersive in tone but not in agency—you’re an observer steering a man who’s constantly telling you what he’s already thinking. It works for the story Remedy is telling, but it also creates a strange split: you’re present, but not fully inside the character. That’s something I want to be careful of with Floppy/Write—if I use “I,” I want it to feel like the player owns that “I,” not like they’re overhearing it.
Horizon Zero Dawn, on the other hand, takes a very clean third-person approach—both in camera and in voice. Aloy is her own person. You control her, but you’re rarely confused about whose choices are whose. When Aloy speaks, it’s Aloy. When you explore, it’s you moving her through the world, not becoming her. There’s a narrative clarity to that which is really powerful, especially when the story hinges so much on Aloy’s personal history and her sense of self in a world that often denies it. It’s a reminder that sometimes using “they” or sticking to third-person isn’t distancing at all—it can actually respect the character’s autonomy.
So when I’m switching between “I” and “you” in Floppy/Write, it’s not just about sentence structure—it’s about which part of the player I’m speaking to. Am I inviting them to feel something I’ve felt? Am I nudging them toward an observation? Am I sketching out a character who will start to feel like a person? Perspective is not a fixed rule for me; it’s a pressure point I press on to test how personal or distant each scene wants to be.
Boukie Games 