DECIDING ON THE MAIN CHARACTER, AND ON HOW THEY PERCEIVE THEIR WORLD

Only a week ago, I thought that I would change my game from following the perspective of one character, to following two others whose lives intersect with each other and the first character - this would serve to give more insight into each of them and would sort of make more sense than having one main character, and cutscenes of the other two talking to people besides that character.

HOWEVER, yesterday or so I returned to the idea of having one main character for the entire game to play as, and I fear that I will be going back and forth between these two options forever!

So I am earnestly wondering, how the hell do you all settle on what character to follow, or whether or not to play as one or more characters through your game? If you've chosen one main character, how do you present information related to other characters - is the player's knowledge of events outside of those which the protagonist is involved in restricted to that of that character?

The problem I have is that the three characters in mind are brothers, with two being different extremes in terms of personality and actions, and the middle bro being the protagonist. The protagonist does not know a lot of stuff about himself that they know, so I am stuck on whether or not the player should learn about this stuff gradually as the protag does, or learn it before he does, or what? Important to note that if he knew things about his antagonist brother (one is very good, the other is very bad, the protagonist is in the middle so is the grey to their black and white), he would be compelled to stop him from harming other people, so it would alter the story if the things he learnt about his bro were discovered BY the player simultaneously - so all I can think of as an alternative to that is to have either cutscenes in which he is not present (which feels sort of clumsy), or to have the other two characters be controllable by the player so that you can more understandably/logically learn what they are doing, their feelings and motives and all that.

However the latter option would kind of dilute the impact of the story somewhat; I am intending to try and make it an insular, condensed sort of thing about the middle bro so that's why I thought going with his perspective only would be effective.

So I guess what I'm asking is more complicated than just "who do you choose to be the main character". How is information about the other characters, the story and the setting presented to you, and to the protagonist?

Yeah, I know it is common in everything, in fact I'm more influenced by film/tv than I am by other games, I suppose I thought I should be trying to make the game a "game", and not a movie? Maybe the way I think how I would execute it feels clumsy, or something. :/

As for your second point, I was thinking a short while ago of having a very linear structure to the game in that you could not even make decisions for the character (there would be one course of action to do in every scenario with no allowance for deviation). (I think games in this vein are sometimes classified as "kinetic novels", or something?). I'm not too thrilled with the super linear idea, although I did try to justify it thematically. Anyway, that is why I'm exploring these other possibilities.

Also, I will reiterate that I am really curious as to how other people (you guys) decide, out of all the character in their game, which to follow as the player character. And how you personally have handled the information about events/plot/other characters the player and protagonist receive through the game.

edit: hahahahaha, this topic is lame XD I think I'm just finding the worst excuses now to procrastinate.

2nd edit: nevermind hahahaha