Twelve Minutes is an adventure game established by Luís António and also released by Annapurna Interactive, released on August 19, 2021 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and also Xbox Collection X/S. The game takes place nearly solely in a studio apartment collection and also calls for the gamer to continuously play with events of a 12-minute cycle to attempt to fix an enigma.
Twelve Minutes is one of the most interesting adventures of this year and unfortunately one of the most frustrating.
Twelve Minutes makes it difficult for us. Not because the game is so bad and you have to overcome it to play it on. And not, because it is so bocking that we would like to uninstall it and never want to touch again. But because Luís António and his team are at least as much wrong as right. This creates a title that you want to love, but it can not be. And then again.
Twelve Minutes was developed by Luís António in collaboration with Annapurna Interactive, a publisher who is always for arthouse-like and extraordinary indie games. So much is said: The point-and-click adventure fits perfectly with its cool history and the interesting scenario in the portfolio. You should not expect a normal game to Scheme F here.
Small note: Twelve Minutes is a game in which the story is the most important aspect. So we will not get around smaller spoilers to talk about the game. We will definitely avoid whole solutions or hard spoilers.
A beautiful evening with candlelight
Twelve Minutes throws you immediately. After a short intro, your little apartment invites you, in which you live together with your wife. While you're still running in the bathroom, you can already familiarize yourself with the environment and control. It works in Twelve Minutes on the PC exclusively via the left mouse button. Since the rooms all are very small and all Points of Interest are to be seen immediately, no more complex control is necessary.
After a brief moment of calm, your partner already occurs from the bathroom and surprises you with a small dessert and a gift. As it looks, a baby from you awaits you and that is of course to celebrate. Stupid only that suddenly a mad policeman knocks on the door, the expectant mother of the morder accuses of her father and bouncing you to death by the way. Immediately after your demise, you are back on the front door and the scene starts from the front. Moment, what?!
Immediately many questions are on. What should that? Murder? Is that correct? What happens here and how can this be prevented? And why is everything right now? Twelve Minutes starts with a tremendous pace that unfortunately can not always hold. Within the first four to five time lines, you discover even exciting information and gradually put together a gloomy puzzle. However, it can happen quickly that you remain stuck.
The solutions of the puzzles are not always intuitive. Everyone who has dealt with the policeman longer will know what we are talking about. From a certain point, unfortunately, you will always have to do the same to get to the point where you want to try another decision. This can be very nerves, as you can shorten some dialogues and paths, but never skip completely. After the tenth or eleventh time strip, your wife bums just annoyed by side when welcoming you: Jaja, go away, I'm just trying to save our lives!
Playable thriller
In his best moments Twelve Minutes works excellently as an interactive thriller. You analyze what you have failed in the previous loop, and tries to give you an advantage. A handle to the smartphone for example. You choose the emergency call and tells the emergency service center that someone stands in front of the door and wants to do the garaut. Stupidly, the patrol needs 15 minutes. That's too long. OK. So quickly put the kitchen knife into the bag and attack the attacker yourself? Hm, that does not work either. In this way, you are always approaching the solution. After a few repetitions and some trial and error, it will eventually succeed in talking to the intruder without your wife being there. Stupid only if you succeed for just before the expiration of twelve minutes and you are no longer able to lead the entire dialogue. So again everything starts at the beginning and the whole procedure a further time.
In his worse moments, you click on any objects in Twelve Minutes Stumps any items or dwelt through dialogue options to seek desperately after any hints that will help you. In such moments, one does not occur like a smart mastermind, but rather like a headless chicken, which does not understand at all, what happens here and how it is to progress here. There is nothing to suspend that in the first step. However, when the solution from the misery fails as unintuitively that it is only solved by dull trial and error, the feeling of frustration is not far away.
Excellent story
The story that tells you the developer of Twelve Minutes and his team is definitely the best of what you can experience this year so far. Already in the first seconds, it manages to create a pleasant atmosphere in a small apartment. In the first run, it actually only experiences a banal sequence of everyday situations. But exactly those creates a warm home feeling. The more effective and disturbing works the break, if suddenly a seemingly anger blind police officer besides our small family idyll with a knock brutally.
The voice acting of the characters, the by the way by James Mcavoy (X-Men, It Chapter 2), Daisy Ridley (Star Wars, Murder in Orient-Express) and Willem Dafoe (John Wick, Aquaman Spider Man ) was also acquired, is also the absolute top class. Both Dafo's policeman role and Ridley's wife figure are so credible and high quality by the performers, that they could be forgotten smoothly that this is only a game. Away from the excellent setting, however, the high-caliber occupation offers no added value. The events will be presented almost exclusively from the bird's eye view and also in the few moments in which the camera setting changes, the faces of the characters can not be seen.
Like everything in Twelve Minutes, unfortunately, the excellent story leaves a thread taste and the end. From spoiler reasons, we will not betray nothing, just as much: From a certain point, the authors seemed shocking twists and surprises more weight than narrative logic. Since the team has already done at least as much as possible in the rest of the title, the peculiar end is somehow consistent in a certain way.
Conclusion
The developer Luís António has not done everything right to deliver a completely terrific adventure. But he did not do enough wrong than we could not recommend his title. Voice Acting at this level combined with competently written dialogues and a cool story you do not often find in the game landscape. Anyone who is not always diverted to the genre should risk a look.
The setting and the underlying story are simply too exciting to punish them completely with disregard. What does the policeman of you want? Is there anything about the murder allegations? How do you come out of the time loop? The answers to these questions are not always as exciting as the questions themselves, the way there is it all right.
Welve Minutes is to have for 20.99 euros on Steam and the current Xbox consoles and also part of the Xbox Game Pass.
Twelve Minutes
Per
Exceptional setting
Excellent voice acting
Atmospheric game world
Well told story
Surprising twists
Easy control
Solutions often logical, ...
Contra
... often not
Strange and abrupt end
Frustrate many repetitions
Illogical Emde
3.5 / 5 stars
Buy Twelve Minutes now!
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