Well, that was disappointing, especially after all the years of waiting since its initial reveal.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the "time loop" trope used in stories, and it's cool to see this work in an Annapurna-published, narrative-driven adventure game (and with a quality voice cast, too). I think it does a good job at performing an enclosed mystery with time limits akin to something like Majora's Mask. But that's all I can really give this game respect for, because everything is overshadowed by how messy the overall execution is.
Just to quickly get the story out of the way without spoilers, its way of unlocking branches of dialogue through finding new information in each loop just feels segmented to me. Rather than the discoveries moving alongside the narrative, Twelve Minutes feels more like a jigsaw puzzle presented within those 10-12 minutes for each loop. The non-linearity and multi-ended design sounds neat on paper, but it ultimately breaks when certain bits of information is discovered out of the order that the writers seemed to intend. And when the twists and pieces start to really connect, the outcome is ultimately a questionable one (although I appreciate the attempt to tackle such a controversial topic).
On the gameplay side, I think it's fine. The point-and-click adventure mechanics didn't bother me at all (even on console), and I found it to be quite a surprise for a game of this nature. However, these puzzle solutions are just downright nonsensical. I reached out to simply following an online guide after struggling to get the information I needed. This is, once again, due to the game's "jigsaw puzzle" style of storytelling, with everything in place from the start. There could've been multiple ways of tackling each piece of progression, but some of the solutions seemed way too complex for puzzle game experts to even find out. While not comparable in genre, this reminded me a lot of P.T., which was designed with no real clues to push through the loop. Other issues reside in how each loop works, such as not being able to fully skip the certain parts of previous loops that you already experienced, which can feel like a real slog to those just a few seconds short from moving through the path.
Twelve Minutes is probably gonna be underwhelming for those expecting another Annapurna banger, but it's definitely not a dumpster fire. In the end, it feels more like a poorly-written escape room than an adventure game, and I do appreciate the experimentation with time-based, enclosed puzzles. It's pretty short once you get the hang of things, and it's available on Xbox Game Pass... so I guess it's passable.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the "time loop" trope used in stories, and it's cool to see this work in an Annapurna-published, narrative-driven adventure game (and with a quality voice cast, too). I think it does a good job at performing an enclosed mystery with time limits akin to something like Majora's Mask. But that's all I can really give this game respect for, because everything is overshadowed by how messy the overall execution is.
Just to quickly get the story out of the way without spoilers, its way of unlocking branches of dialogue through finding new information in each loop just feels segmented to me. Rather than the discoveries moving alongside the narrative, Twelve Minutes feels more like a jigsaw puzzle presented within those 10-12 minutes for each loop. The non-linearity and multi-ended design sounds neat on paper, but it ultimately breaks when certain bits of information is discovered out of the order that the writers seemed to intend. And when the twists and pieces start to really connect, the outcome is ultimately a questionable one (although I appreciate the attempt to tackle such a controversial topic).
On the gameplay side, I think it's fine. The point-and-click adventure mechanics didn't bother me at all (even on console), and I found it to be quite a surprise for a game of this nature. However, these puzzle solutions are just downright nonsensical. I reached out to simply following an online guide after struggling to get the information I needed. This is, once again, due to the game's "jigsaw puzzle" style of storytelling, with everything in place from the start. There could've been multiple ways of tackling each piece of progression, but some of the solutions seemed way too complex for puzzle game experts to even find out. While not comparable in genre, this reminded me a lot of P.T., which was designed with no real clues to push through the loop. Other issues reside in how each loop works, such as not being able to fully skip the certain parts of previous loops that you already experienced, which can feel like a real slog to those just a few seconds short from moving through the path.
Twelve Minutes is probably gonna be underwhelming for those expecting another Annapurna banger, but it's definitely not a dumpster fire. In the end, it feels more like a poorly-written escape room than an adventure game, and I do appreciate the experimentation with time-based, enclosed puzzles. It's pretty short once you get the hang of things, and it's available on Xbox Game Pass... so I guess it's passable.