Twelve Minutes

## System requirements

**Minimum:**
* **OS:** Windows 7
* **Processor:** Intel Core i5-2300 / AMD Phenom II X4 965
* **Memory:** 2 GB RAM
* **Graphics:** Nvidia GeForce GTS 450, 1 GB / AMD Radeon HD 5770, 1 GB

**Recommended:**

* **OS:** Windows 10
* **Processor:** Intel Core i5-6600 / AMD FX-8350
* **Memory:** 4 GB RAM
* **Graphics:** Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, 8 GB / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, 8 GB

**Twelve Minutes** is an interactive thriller game created by Luis Antonio and published by Annapurna Interactive, released on August 19, 2021 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with versions for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 releasing on December 7, 2021. The game takes place almost exclusively in a small Apartment suite and requires the player to repeatedly play through events of a time loop to try to solve a mystery.

## Description

You take the role of the husband, on what should be a romantic evening with your wife. The night turns into a nightmare when a police detective breaks into your home, accuses your wife of murder and beats you to death.

Only for you to find yourself immediately returned to the exact moment you opened the front door, stuck in a TWELVE-MINUTE time loop, doomed to relive the same terror again and again…

Unless you can find a way to use the knowledge of what’s coming to change the outcome and break the loop.

An interactive narrative that blends the dream-like suspense of THE SHINING with the claustrophobia of REAR WINDOW and the fragmented structure of MEMENTO.

## Plot

The Husband returns to his Apartment from work and greets his Wife. The Wife has made dessert, and during the meal, she gives the Husband a present with baby clothes, revealing that she's pregnant. While dancing, a Cop intervenes and has them apprehended in their own apartment. The Cop accuses the Wife of murdering her Father eight years ago and demands her Father's Pocket Watch. When she refuses to cooperate, the Cop strangles the Husband and as she is going to reveal where it is, time resets itself and the Husband is back at the entrance of his Apartment about five minutes ago.

The Husband realizes that the day is repeating itself and tries to explain to the Wife. The loop resets when he tries to leave the Apartment, get killed, or be beaten up. After finding out where the Wife hid the Pocket Watch and that the Cop was planning to kill her, the Husband confronted his Wife and she confessed her family's history.

## Features

* Interactive gameplay
* Evolving conversations depending on the player's actions
* Suspense

## Developers

**Twelve Minutes** was created by the Portuguese Gamedesigner Luis Antonio, who previously worked at Rockstar Games in London and Ubisoft in Canada. After leaving the big industry behind, Luis Antonio worked together with Jonathan Blow and created art for the game "The Witness". For around six years the idea for "Twelve Minutes" occupied Antonio's mind and he went new ways and learned programming to fulfil it.

* Luis Antonio's Official Site

Twitter

### Twelve Minutes Team

* **Director**: Luis Antonio
* **Motion Capture:** Mocap Now, Rouge Mocap
* **Animation:** Alex Yao, CJ Markham, Addison Debolt
* **Environment Art:** James Stout, Pablo Forsolloza, Samuel Kambey, Jonathan Nascone
* **Character Art:** Joao Sapiro Josue, Mashru Mishu, Alexei Murzak, Matthew Kean
* **Concept Art:** Sunder Raj/Particle Beam Studio, s.r.o, Luis Melo, Boell Oyino
* **Paintings by:** Luis Melo
* **Story by:** Luis Antonio
* **Art:** Jonathan Nascone
* **Color Grading:** Leo Hallal

* **Programmers:** Frederico Sousa, Flippfly Studios
* **Written by:** Luis Antonio, Steven Lerner, Stephen Bell & J. Brett VanderMale

* **Sound Design:** Steve Green
* **Music:** Neil Bones

#### Voice talents

* Willem Dafoe
* James McAvoy
* Daisy Ridley

## Gameplay

The game takes place in a top-down perspective on an apartment and the player character can make use of various objects and combine them. Depending on the knowledge of the player character the options in conversations evolve. On the official game site of **Twelve Minutes** in section "How does it play ?" the developer Luis Antonio shows a glimpse of what players can expect in **Twelve Minutes**:

In the short gameplay video, the husband returns home from work to his wife in the apartment. He can interact with the highlighted objects in the room and combine them with other items or characters. In the video example, the husband picks up a cup and fills water in it to give it to his wife. The behaviour then influences the consequences resulting from that. Players got a short time to interact until a policeman arrives at the door. Both are handcuffed, and the wife is accused of the murder of her father eight years ago. After the husband tries to fight back, the detective goes insane and strangles him.

The time loop kicks in and the husband is brought back to the same time he arrived after work in the first scene, but retains knowledge of the previous event. New options in the conversation with the wife appear and one can even talk with her about this "déjà vu" and try convince her this happened before. Slowly the scene nears the point before the detective arrives and because the husband's convincing leads nowhere it's time to plan ahead with the knowledge from the first scene.

In the gameplay example, the husband is now arming himself with a kitchen knife and locking himself in the bathroom with the lights off. Then the policeman is knocking on the door again, fights with the woman and finally kicks open the door into the bathroom. The knife attack is pointless and the husband is beaten to death. This restarts the scene and the husband returns from work.

With every cycle the husband finds out more and can bring changes to the situation.

## Controls

The controls can be checked in the options menu of the game.

* LMB - move and interact, click and drag the inventory items to combine them.

## Trivia

* The carpet pattern in the hall of the apartment building is a nod to the film "The Shining" directed by Stanley Kubrick, where the same carpet design appears in the interior of the "Overlook Hotel". The page Film and Furniture dedicated a whole article about this pattern which was originally designed by David Hicks.
* If one watches the picture with the trees in the living room more closely, the image varies with changes in the timeloop. E.g.: Release Date Trailer.
* **12 Minutes** was one of the eight video game titles that got selected at the Tribeca Games - Tribeca Festival. Read more on the Tribeca Film about page.

## Sources

1. ↑ 12 Minutes on Steam
2. ↑ 12 Minutes Official Site about the Tribeca Selection