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Recent Playing: Twelve Minutes
Apr. 5th, 2024 12:56 pmTwelve Minutes is a puzzle game by Annapurna Interactive. The Steam page description is
An interactive thriller about a man trapped in a time loop.
This is one of those games I was interested in since first reading the description of it in a Game Informer years ago. The premise of the entire story taking place within the one small apartment while the player loops the same twelve minutes over and over again trying to resolve the situation nonviolently was fascinating. And while much of that premise holds up, in the end the game can't commit to its own conceit of limiting the story to the apartment.
In this time loop, the PC arrives home to his wife, who's made dessert and wants to share some big news with him. During the evening, a man announcing himself as a police officer arrives, makes some accusations, and then shoots the PC. The goal of the game is to keep using the time loop to prevent the encounter from becoming violent.
Throughout gameplay you learn various things about the PC, his wife, and the cop (none of whom have actual names) and use those details to manipulate the situation to your benefit. For the most part, the puzzle moves forward in ways that make sense. There was only one part that I really got stuck on and eventually took a peek at a hint for how to move forward, but other than that I felt like with a reasonable amount of thought it wasn't too difficult to figure your way towards the goal. There's definitely a bit of crazy-making in pacing around your shoebox apartment trying to decide if this or that will help the situation, but in the fun way that you expect to be a little frustrated while working through a puzzle.
For me, though, the ultimate resolution and end of the game were a disappointment. The final reveals felt like they didn't make much sense in the broader scope of what we had already learned about the situation and it felt like a letdown that the game needed to take you out of the apartment to resolve the story. Some confusion from a story that plays with time is perhaps to be expected, but the ending here felt so unclear as to feel anticlimactic.
I don't regret playing Twelve Minutes, but I can only recommend it with reservations due to the ending.
An interactive thriller about a man trapped in a time loop.
This is one of those games I was interested in since first reading the description of it in a Game Informer years ago. The premise of the entire story taking place within the one small apartment while the player loops the same twelve minutes over and over again trying to resolve the situation nonviolently was fascinating. And while much of that premise holds up, in the end the game can't commit to its own conceit of limiting the story to the apartment.
In this time loop, the PC arrives home to his wife, who's made dessert and wants to share some big news with him. During the evening, a man announcing himself as a police officer arrives, makes some accusations, and then shoots the PC. The goal of the game is to keep using the time loop to prevent the encounter from becoming violent.
Throughout gameplay you learn various things about the PC, his wife, and the cop (none of whom have actual names) and use those details to manipulate the situation to your benefit. For the most part, the puzzle moves forward in ways that make sense. There was only one part that I really got stuck on and eventually took a peek at a hint for how to move forward, but other than that I felt like with a reasonable amount of thought it wasn't too difficult to figure your way towards the goal. There's definitely a bit of crazy-making in pacing around your shoebox apartment trying to decide if this or that will help the situation, but in the fun way that you expect to be a little frustrated while working through a puzzle.
For me, though, the ultimate resolution and end of the game were a disappointment. The final reveals felt like they didn't make much sense in the broader scope of what we had already learned about the situation and it felt like a letdown that the game needed to take you out of the apartment to resolve the story. Some confusion from a story that plays with time is perhaps to be expected, but the ending here felt so unclear as to feel anticlimactic.
I don't regret playing Twelve Minutes, but I can only recommend it with reservations due to the ending.
