Release Date: 19/08/2021
Played On: XBO
Available On: NS / PS4 / PS5 / Win / XBO / XBSX
Time Played: 2h 35m
Progress: Completed
Developer: Luis Antonio
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before how much I'm a fan of Annapurna Interactive as a publisher, as they seem to consistently put out interesting and unique narrative heavy games that are usually right up my alley. I love it when a publisher has a kind of theme to the games they release, and as a fan of those games, I always feel pretty confident when Annapurna Interactive are in the credits. At least, I used to feel that way, but now I'm a little less certain.
After all, there were two main reasons why I was so excited to play Twelve Minutes, the first being the publisher. This is the publisher who has backed some of my favourite games from recent years like The Artful Escape, Sayonara Wild Hearts, and What Remains Of Edith Finch to name a few. This is one of the few publishers whose games I will probably try simply because they have published it. Not only have I always had a good time with their games, but they're the kind of games that feel even more rewarding to encounter blind.
That is to say that I probably would have played Twelve Minutes either way, but the second reason it piqued my interest was the big-name voice cast featuring James McAvor, Daisy Ridley, and one of my all-time favourite actors Willem Dafoe. I tend to watch any movie that features Dafoe, so I figured a game wouldn't be any different and as soon as I heard he was involved, I was sold. The combination of Annapurna Interactive as publisher, and Willem Dafoe doing some voice acting smelled like a pungent brew of success, so I dove in head first.
You might think that this is where the big old "but" comes into the story; execpt that's not where I'm going with this one. The game certainly received a mixed reception from critics and players alike, but I think I ended up enjoying myself more than most, despite some severe flaws that we'll get to eventually. For the most part though, I was pleased to find the interesting and unique narrative experience that I had been expecting, complete with excellent voice acting from the all-star cast.
Twelve Minutes is a top-down point and click game that takes place in roughly ten minute blocks of time. Certain events play out over the course of those minutes, and time resets once the end of the sequence is complete. The main goal of each time loop is to uncover more information about the overall story, and somehow break the loop by solving a mystery along the way. It's a compelling premise and a kind of story-telling that I actually enjoy. Using a time loop to revela small thereads of a bigger picture always feels satisfying to me, and uncovering the next piece of the puzzle that lets you move on always delivers that hit of dopamine that we all look for in games.
Without spoiling anything, the whole game is set in a couple's apartment where we play as the husband (James McAvoy) who arrives home to where his wife (Daisy Ridley) has been waiting with a special dinner and a surprise. Before too long the coiuple are interrupted by an aggressive policeman (Willem Dafoe) who arrests both of them and demands answers about a crime that happened many years ago. Without any intervention from the player, the policeman will hurt our character, who then awakens at the start of the time loop and experiences the sequence of events over and over until they are able to break the cycle.
Again, without spoiling anything, the gameplay consists of conversations with your wife and the policeman, as well as interacting with certain items and locations in the small apartment. For example, if you time it correctly, you can hide in a closet when the policeman comes to the door, making it seem like you're not home. Or you could sit down for a pleasant conversation and dinner with your wife, pour some drinks and get lost in the candlelight. Whatever you choose to do, the ultimate goal of breaking the cycle and uncovering the mystery that surrounds these events relies on a lot of experimentation and changing up the way you approach every option.
Thankfully though, our player-character remembers everything that has happened in previous time loops, so as we discover more information, we are able to fast-track out way through a little further each time. You might spend one loop talking to your wife and finding new conversation points to explore, so that next loop you can jump straight to those new dialogue options and hopefully move on to the next.
In this way Twelve Minutes shares a lot with point and click puzzle adventures, as you are constantly piecing together optimal solutions to problems and then going about implementing them. However, I found that I could only get so far by simply moving around and clicking on everything I could find to click on, as the deeper branches of the tree took a bit of conscious decision making to find. As a stright up puzzle adventure, this is a fantastic litlte game with some exciting moments of revelation along the way, and some creative and interesting ways to tackle each problem.
In fact, if the whole game had stuck to this focus on gameplay and allowed us to tease out an interesting narrative to sequence break the time loop, it would have been a spectacular experience. Even something as simple as figuring out how to make it past the first hurdle in the sequence came with a rewarding and encouraging solution. It's the kind of gameplay that really makes you feel like a genius when you figure something out, and opens up enough new options for it to seem meaningful and worth all the effort. From the moment the penny dropped and I had figured out how to learn new ways of changing events in Twelve Minutes, I was entirely consumed with the process and glued to my screen. At least until I made it to the final moments of the entire game.
When you're playing through a repeating narrative that slowly unfolds as you poke and pull at certain possibilities and threads, it helps to be invested in what you're investigating. Thankfully the story in Twelve Minutes really delivers on the intrigue and I was fascinated with every detail I discovered along the way, until the final few minutes where everything went haywire. I don't like to spoil stories in these posts, and I'm not going to do it here, but I'm aware that even hinting at certain story outcomes is a spoiler in itself, so you have been warned. The sad fact of the game is that the resolution to the entire mystery and all the little details you uncover throughout the game, is utterly disappointing and even mildly annoying.
If I were to graph my enjoyment of playing Twelve Minutes, it would look like the incline and drop of a roller-coaster. Where I constantly enjoyed myself more and more, right up to the final moments, when suddenly the entire journey takes a sharp turn and you'd notice my enjoyment plummet to the floor within moments. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I have never encountered a disappointing ending to a game as frustratingly terrible as the one we're given in Twelve Minutes. It's one of those endings that made everything else I'd been doing seem pointless and a waste of time, which is kind of ironic when you think about it.
Suffice to say that I would be glowing and happily recommending Twelve Minutes to everyone who's into the Annapurna Interactive style of narrative game, if it weren't for that ending. What makes it even more disappointing, is how strong the puzzling gameplay was to that point, and how satisfying it felt to continue to break the time loop sequence and drive the story forward. There's very little I'd change about the first ninety-five percent of the game, as it's only that final peercentage that let the whole thing down.
I don't really want to harp on about it, but I have to express that the disappointment I felt when I reached the end of Twelve Minutes, was enough to now make me cautious about Annapurna Interactive as a publisher. Sure the game had the kind of interesting narrative-driven gameplay that I expected from them, but it crashed so hard in the end, that I wonder if anyone from the publisher actually played the game before sending it out into the wild. I have to think that if someone had given it a test run, they would have had to say something about the ridiculously awful ending. It ended up annoying me even more than the infamous Mass Effect 3 ending, which was undeniably lazy, but didn't infuriate me quite as much as this one.
I'm left with a sense of uneasiness and like my trust in one of my favourite publishers has failed the test. Of course, I'll be the first to say that being a fan of a company is pointless and vapid, if only I hadn't felt like I could rely on this publisher to deliver the goods. Plus, it's unfair to hold the flaws of a single game against an entire publisher, but I can't help seeing Twelve Minutes as a stain on an otherwise impeccible record.
This game would have been better served with a bit of ambiguity, as the ending that wraps everything up in a tight little bow is nothing short of ridiculous. Thankfully the rest of the game was interesting and unique, with some truly compelling branches to follow and some rewarding revelations to uncover. I'd love to see a proper murder mystery game made in this style, as it would fit the format perfectly. In fact it kind of reminds me of The Sexy Brutale, only without the polished complexity of its narrative.
Twelve Minutes is far from perfect, thanks to a tiny little aspect that ruins everything else, but even then it's worth a look. I can't deny that I thoroughly enjoyed myself for the vast majority of the experience, so even the annoyingly bad ending doesn't change any of that. As far as point and click narrative puzzle games go, you could actually do a lot worse than the first few acts of this one. Maybe some clever clogs will find a way to mod out the terrible ending and future players will be able to play with confidence and without the shattering disappointment I had to endure.
I guess it just goes to show that even having Willem Dafoe on the books wont save crappy writing.