As the protagonist, McAvoy has the bulk of the lines, and he does a good job selling his character's desperation in the face of unbelievable events. That celebrity lineup helped gain this indie game outsized attention, but the Hollywood stars never felt like a distraction and their strong performances imbue the game with unexpected poignancy. There are similar shades in the performances from McAvoy, Ridley, and Dafoe. They have always been present in the 12-minute loop but can only be discovered by tilting your head in a new direction, focusing your vision on a neglected, dusty corner. Just as there are new shades revealed through shifting light, so too are there shades to this story.
This dynamism helps to sell the idea that this small space contains multitudes. Enter again, and the room has gone dark, with blue, nocturnal tones. At one point, the bedroom might be brightly lit. Wait, there's more? In this one bedroom apartment? That I've scoured every inch of? How?ġ2 Minutes is mechanically rich because it leans into this old school kind of adventuring that encourages creative thinking.ġ2 Minutes' use of lighting contributes to this feeling. The top-down perspective reveals an environment that is so small and starkly empty that, as each new layer of the story is unveiled, it almost feels like magic. The environment is so small and well-considered, and loops so brief, that I rarely went longer than a few minutes without thinking up something new to try. I never found myself giving into this impulse while playing 12 Minutes. Is there any reason I should study the framed art prints on the wall? Does this dessert exist only to be eaten? Could the book on meditation that the wife is reading possibly have any purpose beyond characterization? In a traditional point-and-click adventure game, these questions could easily lead to annoyance, the kind of frustration that comes from trying every item on every other item until something finally works. But most exist in an intriguing gray area. There are a few items that seem to have obvious utility, like a knife on the counter and a bottle of sleeping pills in the bathroom cabinet. The apartment is small-believably so, in a way that fictional apartments rarely are-and is composed of four rooms: a primary space which does triple duty as living room, kitchen, and dining room a bedroom a bathroom and a coat closet. Then, the loop restarts and you're stumbling into your apartment, warmly lit for that romantic dinner you'll never get to finish. No matter what you do, he will enter your apartment, bind you both with flex cuffs, and kill you. You can let him in, or wait for him to kick down the door. Midway through dinner, a mysterious man (Willem Dafoe) shows up at the door, claiming to be police.
12 minutes video game windows#
That weather event-which your character will take note of if you interact with any of the windows in the apartment-is a fitting metaphor for the turn your pleasant evening is about to take. It's a romantic evening, but there's a storm brewing just outside. Once inside the apartment, our protagonist is greeted by his wife (Daisy Ridley), who has set out some fake candles, prepared dessert, and wrapped a present. There aren't many objects in the apartment, but those that are there can often be combined in fun and surprising ways.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's 12 Minutes is mechanically rich because it leans into this old school kind of adventuring that encourages creative thinking. It's a short but effective introduction to the point-and-click-style mechanics on display here. The hallway between the elevator and the apartment door-eerily carpeted with the autumnal pattern from The Shining's Overlook Hotel-serves as a brief tutorial: learn to navigate from the game's top-down perspective, find a fake rock in the potted plant outside the apartment, use the fake rock to find the key within, take that key and use it on the door. I say "almost entirely" because, as the game begins, its unnamed protagonist (voiced by James McAvoy) rides the elevator up to that apartment. But that smallness contains narrative and mechanical multitudes that pay off consistently over the course of 12 Minutes' six-hour runtime. It is spare in length and small in scope, taking place almost entirely within a one-bedroom apartment.
12 Minutes is the time-loop story reduced to its very essence.
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