Twelve Minutes

If you like games where to repeat things until you figure out the "tricks" to succeed, then you'll like this game. I personally love the games I've played like this, and 12 Minutes was perfect to me.

"12 minutes", the new point and click video game from Annapurna interactive, creators of "What remains of Edith Finch", is as smart and addicting as it is tedious and some what lackluster. The premise, much like a movie, is a "Ground hogs day" like rinse and repeat of 12 minutes in the main characters life. James McAvoy, voices the main character, only known as "husband", as he comes home to the worst night of his life. His wife, voiced by Daisy Ridley, has been keeping secrets from him and a would be cop, voiced by Willem Dafoe, is about to bring all that to light. That is if you can figure out the mystery of the incidents playing out in one of the countless minutes you will replay over and over again. Your only hope is that in each loop you will learn just a tad more information to unlock a new dialogue tree or figure out how to use something in the small apartment that haplens to be the only location in the game. After many tries and many fails you will find yourself doing hilarously terrible things just to see what will happen. This tedium can make you lose interest fast, but if you are like me, you will be to fascinated in the mystery before you to give up. What you will find as you truck forward is a plethora of endings, scenarios and smart use of game norms to mess with your experience. As much as I loved all of these things, I was ultimately confused and let down by what seems to be the only twist. It's dark in a strange way and you will be left feeling that it can't be the real truth. This is made worse by some rather annoying glitches and lack of smarter controls. There is however, some rather clever game play, acting and visuals to make this one more special than your average game. Add to that some truly clever uses of Xbox achievements and a dense amount of story and this one really shines over its flaws .

I don't think I've ever played a game like this before. The story and gameplay loop sucks you in from its opening few minutes. The events that unfold throughout your 8 or so hour adventure takes place in a single apartment over a course of 12 minutes. The setting; you play as a man having dinner with his wife and all seems serene until the night slowly spirals into chaos as a policeman abruptly interrupts and wreaks havoc. Then, boom! The day repeats. Timeloop.

The game is played from a single top down perspective and is essentially a point and click adventure. You click on things and direct the husband throughout his 12 minute evening choosing different dialogue options and choosing certain actions that cause the events to drastically change on each repeated time loop. The games goal is that your wife is being accused of murder and you must prove her innocence. The art style is pleasing enough and the sound design does the job. The voice talent hear is excellent with James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley and Willem Defoe voicing the husband, wife and policeman respectively. Defoe here is a particular joy to listen to and stands out as the menacing mysterious policeman.

Unfortuantley what starts out with intrigue and mystery and a desire to press on quickly gets bogged down in tedium and frustration. You have to repeat dialogue loops over and over to progress. The story often hits a brick wall with regards progression and randomly trying different options to progress can become tiring. The game over stays its welcome by about 3 or so hours and doesn't serve to guide the player or have any system other than trial an error in some cases to advance things along. In the end after sinking 5 or so hours I had had enough and just used a guide to suss out the endings. There are multiple resolutions to this tale and the twist ending feels somewhat unearned and not as intelligent as it thinks it is.

All in all the premise here is exciting but its execution could have done with some refinement. An interesting game with some excellent performances that unfortunately out stays its welcome. Try it on game pass or pick it up in a sale.

12 minutes starts off with an interesting top-down view of an apartment foyer. The tutorial and game mechanics are offered by navigating down the hallway to your apartment door and opening it. The controls and gameplay are a very straight forward click and drag system which is very intuitive.

The graphics are quite nice for the style and suits the story and gameplay. It is nothing special though and no use of ray tracing or any particularly breathtaking visuals. The voice cast were great and this is no surprise considering the three main actors were James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley and Willem DaFoe. No expense spared in the casting department which helps with the immersion.

The game revolves around your tiny apartment with your wife and is played out in real time with a maximum of 12 minutes through any given time loop. Each time someone dies or the current story is played out the story is rewound back to the start of the 12 minutes and the loop starts again.

Whilst it does sound extremely monotonous, each play through gives you more information and answers in order to use that newly acquired information to go forward the loop after and it continues until you are able to solve the mystery and get one or several of the many endings. I thought the story was excellent and was not disappointed.

I can see how some people may be turned off by the repetitiveness of running through the same scene and dialogue over and over again, but for me this was the interesting part. It wasn't until I was attempting achievements that it started to feel a bit grindy.

I had an absolute blast searching for new ways to gather more information and get closer to the end and thought it was a very clever way for a point and click puzzle/adventure game if you would even call it that. This was one of my favourite games in a long time and I can't wait for Annapurna Interactive to try something similar in a new release. I would definitely be playing on launch that's for sure!

A Groundhog Day type game where you relive the same 12 minutes over and over, each time discovering something new about your wife, your surroundings, and yourself. It's a mind**** for sure! I definitely loved the ending, and the reveal was about as messed up as a game can get. Definitely a must for people who like mysteries and don't mind scroll and click games.