A thrilling revolution in the art of video gaming
THE BIG RELEASE TWELVE MINUTES
XO, Series X/S, PC
EVERY once in a while, a video game comes along that smacks you upside the head and demands to be viewed through the lens of interactive art. Gone Home, Pony Island and Kentucky Route Zero come to mind. And now we can add Luis Antonio’s astounding time-loop thriller to the list. All very different games that share one thing – a vision of what games can be, rather than a specific genre, gameplay or purpose.
The watchword here is experimental. These are games pushing the boundaries of interactive storytelling and player agency and Twelve Minutes is a mesmerising feat of design and direction, which, at its apex, questions human nature with the deftness of any other ambitious art.
Set in a US apartment, comprising a lounge area, closet, bathroom and bedroom, two things stand out straight away – the relentless top-down floor plan-style view and the 12-minute cycle of events, which repeat with each playthrough until you solve the game’s central mystery.
The player controls a husband walking in from work (the only character that retains knowledge of previous loops) and while he can – and must – investigate his surroundings, it’s the beautifully crafted dialogue with his wife that really gets the head nodding. Needless to say, for a plot that includes pregnancy, murder and some rather grisly interactions with a kitchen knife, this is 18-rated stuff and not for the kids.
And once a cop enters the fray, things quickly go south. To say any more would ruin what amounts to roughly five hours of trial-anderror playthroughs and scintillating story, with a tremendous ending to a plotline that brilliantly blends the screenplay of a Hitchcock thriller, with the deduction of a classic 20th-century whodunnit.
The overall architecture of the game really earns the plaudits. The minimalist, dimly lit, blood-rimmed atmosphere of the apartment owes a debt to Stanley Kubrick with the narrowed point of view heaping claustrophobia on to an already constrained space. Yes, the top-down view can be disorientating yet this only adds to the unavoidable invading menace.
The art style, meanwhile, shares a similar enticing domesticity with the soft lines and ambiguous visual storytelling of comic strip artists Richard McGuire and Adrian Tomine. And, at times, the slow, plodding interaction between player and items (paintings, mugs, a watch) echoes the curiosity rewarded in escape rooms and pointand-click games. Throw in the excellent voice work of Hollywood actors James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley and Willem Dafoe (recording their lines during lockdown) and the genre-busting is complete.
THE VERDICT
An excellent, experimental oneshot gaming experience. A cult following surely awaits