Isometric puzzler Pavilion attempting to break the fourth person gameplay wall
Fourth person gameplay is not a term one usually hears when discussing the contents of a video game. Today on the PS Blog, Pavilion developer Visiontrick Media tries to explain how this works in the firm's isometric puzzler.
According to studio co-founder and creative director Henrik Flink, three fundamental components makeup Pavilion's gameplay:
"The first is the main character seen running around in the world of Pavilion," he said. "His behaviors and personality needs to be observed, understood and aided for you both to traverse and progress in the game. The second component is the environment. The layout of the surrounding world in which the main character is traveling will affect his traversal.
The third is the interactive objects which can be manipulated and thus affect both the environment and indirectly the main character."
Flink said apart from these three in-game components is the outside fourth component: the wielder of interactive objects which causes reactions from the character and changes in the environment.
Depending on how things relate to each other, puzzling situations will emerge, and each provided the player with new knowledge, a better understanding of the gameplay, as a problem to solve.
"Once you realize the solution, execution will be direct and easy," he said. "We rather want to reward the player for understanding than punish them for not seeing the solution right away."
The fourth person idiom relates in part to an "indirect steering of the main character like in Pac Man 2", but with a different logic; however, Flink said this isn't the sole reason to use the term.
"Unfortunately we can’t go deeper into its meanings without spoiling certain parts of the experience," he teased. "Pavilion presents itself best when played and we look forward to giving you a hands-on experience at game shows later this fall."
It definitely doesn't sound like your typical puzzler, and Flink's teasing just piques our interest even more. Unfortunately, I don't own either system it's in development for - yet.