Twelve Minutes

"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.

It was an amazing game, but it wasn't for me. If you like horror games (ik this game isn't a horror game but y'know) then i think you would like this game. But I didn't like it.

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.

The story is... unique (in a Game of Thrones/Memento sort of way... play the game and you'll know exactly what that means), but very intriguing. The voice cast is phenomenal. Anything with Willem Dafoe is great by default, but I was pleasantly surprised with James McAvoy's performance. Definitely a fun game that's frustratingly addictive until you solve it all.