Twelve Minutes

And you’re back in the room

PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series

Luis Antonio’s time-loop thriller would be tense enough in ordinary circumstances. But playing a time-limited demo of a game in which your protagonist already knows they’re against the clock adds an extra layer of pressure. Conscious of Antonio watching on invisibly, we become acutely aware of every single action we’re taking. Yet that’s as it should be in a game where every move counts. Because from the moment James McAvoy’s everyman arrives home to a surprise meal from his wife (Daisy Ridley), you’ve got about five minutes of in-game time to prepare for the event that threatens to change their lives forever.

But before we get to that, let’s rewind to the beginning. McAvoy’s character has forgotten his apartment key, but there’s a fake rock concealed among the fronds of the plant outside the front door that yields a spare. The key goes into his inventory at the top of the screen; click and drag it to the door and he unlocks it, in what amounts to the most economical control tutorial we’ve seen in a while. Inside the apartment we hear Ridley singing happily (if rather tunelessly) to herself. Emerging into the living room, she embraces her husband and tells him she’s made dessert. A storm brewing outside warns of trouble on the horizon, but in the meantime she has news to share.

Just as we’re unwrapping the gift she’s presented to us, there’s a loud knock at the door. “Police! Open up!” barks an instantly familiar voice. It’s Willem Dafoe, the final part of this three-hander, delivering his demands in a tone that would make anyone think twice before following his instructions. Within moments, this intruder has barged his way inside. He tells Ridley to turn around before zip-tying her hands behind her back, and we temporarily freeze, unsure how to respond – until a lone piece of cutlery on the draining board catches our eye. “Oh, you go straight for the knife?” Antonio teases. Well, we have to do something. But by the time we drag it to Dafoe’s intruder to attack him, it’s clear he’s prepared for such a response. Blocking our lunge, he quickly overpowers us, and just before the horror of the situation gets any worse, we flash back to McAvoy walking through the door. “Jesus Christ, what the hell just happened?” he gasps, as Ridley’s unchained melody wafts in from the other room once more. In other words, while he is stuck in a nightmarish Groundhog Day situation, she remains blissfully unaware.

It’s a thrilling opening, even if it’s hardly the first time loop in which we’ve been caught lately. But Antonio could hardly have known he would suddenly find himself part of a trend when production began on

Twelve Minutes. After finishing work on The Witness, he developed a version of the game which he submitted to IGF in 2016, earning an honourable mention in the Seumas McNally Grand Prize category. “It was to see if this game was worthwhile putting my effort in,” he says. “Then I started to work on it, and as it grew into something much, much deeper, that’s when I was like, OK, if I’m going to do this, I should go all the way in. Because I’m only doing this game once.”

From the Overlook Hotel flooring outside the protagonist’s apartment to the Herrmannesque strings on the soundtrack, cinema’s influence on Antonio’s game is obvious, even before you get to the Hollywood talent involved. “With this cast, I think you’ll see how we’ve been able to bring these characters to life,” he says, admitting it was an unusual challenge to get McAvoy, Ridley and Dafoe “to figure out how to interpret having such a fragmented script.” That’s not Antonio being self-critical; rather, he’s referring to the need for the story to adapt to the many different actions the player may have taken. When we pick up a spoon, for example, Ridley’s character invites us to “go ahead and finish setting the table”. And as we find out more about what’s going on, loop after loop, the dialogue trees expand accordingly. You could think of it as a narrative Roguelike, where knowledge persists between runs, and your upgrades are fresh insights and extra topics of conversation.

There are lots of moving parts in this dense sandbox of choice and consequence, then, so it’s a surprise to learn that Annapurna’s involvement wasn’t to broaden the game’s scope, but rather to streamline it. Sure, it may have paid for quality actors and extensive motion-capture sessions – if the expressive animations feel slightly exaggerated, they work in the context of a theatrical three-hander where you can’t see the characters’ faces. But the publisher encouraged Antonio to remove extraneous elements. “There were more [interactive] items in the apartment,” he says, “but now there’s literally nothing in the apartment that is not relevant to the story. Everything you see will play a part.”

We don’t have as much time as we’d like to test that notion to its fullest extent, but some of the possibilities leave us decidedly uneasy. In the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, we find tablets that McAvoy’s character remarks “pack a fucking punch”. There’s plenty of time for us to mix them in a mug of water and invite our wife to drink up, then, but why would we want to do that? “You’d be surprised at what some players try!” Antonio laughs. Perhaps we’re reading too much into Ridley’s casting; picking a side between her and a violent intruder played with such sinister relish by Dafoe is a no-brainer. But then he is accusing her of murder, and there are signs she knows more than she’s letting on. On our next attempt, then, we decide to wait it out – here, even inaction can sometimes yield useful clues. But we wriggle once too often while zip-tied, and this time we watch in horror as we’re choked to death. The next loop begins with McAvoy wheezing and clutching his throat.

There are a few sharp intakes of breath from the other side of the screen, too, particularly as we peer through the slats of a closet (the view temporarily shifting to a firstperson perspective), waiting for the right moment to surprise Dafoe’s mysterious assailant. In truth, it feels a little awkward, to the point where we’re not sure if it’s possible to do it this way – clicking to emerge, we only succeed in alerting him as we slide the door open, even if on our second attempt we land a few stabs before we’re subdued. But if that 12-minute loop remains unbroken by the time we’re asked to relinquish control, we’re already considering alternative approaches to try next time. Can we call the ‘real’ cops with the phone we spot tucked inside a jacket pocket inside the closet? Is there a way to convince our wife to leave the apartment before dessert? Or could that chocolate pudding be the solution we’ve been looking for? Either way, we’re eager to find out.

“If I’m going to do this, I should go all the way in. I’m only doing this game once”