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.
10 Reviews
Extra minutes
afrocut31 August 2021
"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 .
An intriguing premise eventually becomes your own personal purgatory.
Scott_Mercer7414 February 2022
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.
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.
If you like groundhogs day games...
annaily10 September 2021
More than 12 minutes of original fun.
haroldnmadge22 August 2021
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!
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!
Great Voice Acting, Unique Memento-esque Game
croftm-322-59008521 August 2021
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.
Okay
kinglil300021 August 2021
Im stuck! What do i do?
AvionPrince1618 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
So yeah i was pretty interested by the video game and found the concept original but the big problem for me in that video game is the way that we need to find to make the story go forward. I mean its not obvious how to act and what to do at a specific moment. I really wanted to know more about the story but the structure of the video game really lead to frustration over and over. We are stuck in that loop with these main events: we are going back to home, find our wife and that policeman who will l killed us. The story looked interesting but the gameplay and the structure are so frustrating and really not enjoyable. Stuff are weird and if we dont know what to do in the video game we are really stuck and that interesting story cant be tell because we didnt know how to act. So for now im stuck in the story and dont know what to do lol. So yeah for me the video game is just frustrating and nothing more sadly even if i wanted to know more about the story.
Excellent
nehirdirlikyapan3 December 2023
I seriously fell in love with this game. Even when I finished the game, I couldn't get over it for a long time. The voice cast is excellent, the story is gripping and wonderfully done. In short, the game is very professional. The game never lags. The more you play, the more you play, it would be perfect if we finally told the woman everything and got together again. The game only gives us one ending, so I don't think the game has a happy ending. I wish we could be together again with our wife, tell the truth, be happy and the game would be over. I don't remember playing a game that affected me this much in my life. The drawings, the house we live in, etc., all obviously took a lot of effort. It's obvious that a lot of effort has been put into the game. But I wish there was a movie of this game. If it were, it would be one of my favorite movies. I hope they make a movie of it too. The game is a game that distorts perceptions, and I liked this feature the most. It's so professional that we go back to the past and change everything. But as I said, it had an unhappy ending; frankly, it was as if we had never been together with our wife. Upset :(
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