12 Minutes Reviews
This game demands your patience and undivided attention. In return, it will reward you with an intriguing story showered in mystery, suspense, heart, and passion. To bring up a passage from Roger Ebert’s essay once again, “No video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.” That essay was published 11 years ago. I’ve played a lot of video games since then I can argue are pieces of art. I experienced art form when I played Journey, Abzu, Red Dead Redemption 2, Shadow of the Colossus, among so many others. This year, I experienced art form when I played Twelve Minutes.
A miniature time loop thriller that will burrow into your frontal lobe and stay there long after you've solved the mystery.
12 Minutes is a point-and-click adventure in a clockwork world that's as expertly crafted as a Swiss watch.
I would not call Twelve Minutes just an experiment, because the result is convincing in every aspect and the perfectible parts are absolutely minor. The experience packaged by Luis Antonio and Annapurna is another excellent example of the possibilities that videogames can offer, both in narrative and interactive terms.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Despite taking place solely in a tiny apartment, 12 Minutes delivers hours of captivating mysteries.
Twelve Minutes is an immaculate construction of narrative that manages to take an extremely compact apartment space and spin an incredibly substantial story in it.
12 Minutes is a brilliant, complex, dense and very smart point and click adventure, which amazes each time you play it, thanks to its many, many branches. Served by a talented and rightfully toned cast, 12 Minutes is a rare and outstanding experience all the way.
Review in French | Read full review
Twelve Minutes is bold in its artistic choices in every aspect of the game. From the top-down camera perspective to the deliberate lack of instruction from the very beginning, Twelve Minutes wants you to figure everything out for yourself and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes. There are drawbacks to this, as exemplified by my own shortcomings when it comes to puzzle games, but it’s also elegant in its simplicity and minimalism. Twelve Minutes is a deliberately introspective game that doesn’t waste its breath on unnecessary exposition or dialogue. Wanting to see all it has to offer may take some effort on the player’s part, but it’s well worth the hard work and investment.
Twelve Minutes is a thrill ride through and through, constantly presenting players with new and interesting revelations in the time looping narrative that never fails to keep one guessing. It veers away from stereotypical point-and-click adventure tropes, and challenges players to bend its densely-detailed environments to achieve their goals.
12 Minutes is a game about escaping a time loop, which is ironic given that it's so good that I wish I could see it all again for the first time myself.
Twelve Minutes had me on a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. I started being let down by the game seeming too simple in premise. Then I got frustrated because I got stuck uncovering its hidden complexities. Finally, I can't and don't want to put it down until I'd turned everything over thrice. It executes the time loop mechanic meticulously, its story is twisting and turning constantly, and the excellent voice cast, environmental art, and music work together to create a new type of adventure game. It is not perfect, and you see some cut corners, but what it sacrifices, it makes up for with a satisfying payoff as you delve deeper into its time loop to unravel the mystery at the core.
Twelve Minutes is clearly not made for the general public. The experience it offers is very unique, exciting and extremely immersive, but not very fun. For those interested in fully immersing themselves in a unique time-loop story, Twelve Minutes is sure to be a treat. However, the game will hardly please those who are simply looking for a good game to pass the time.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
A manual Must Play if you enjoy investigative cinema, it is difficult to give a verdict for readers without incurring spoilers, what is clear is that this story should be told in the form of a video game and Luis Antonio manages to carry intelligently and with an excellent script tells an unconventional story of a crime that is worth being solved.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Twelve Minutes is a must-have game for lovers of good stories and also for those nostalgic for point-and-click adventures. Its voice cast is magnificent and helps to elevate the already excellent story of Luis Antonio and Annapurna.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Twelve Minutes' strong narrative and star-studded cast of voice actors make it a solid mystery thriller that is slightly held back by clunky movements and occasionally janky controls.
All in all, I really enjoyed the tension Twelve Minutes implemented even with its sometimes wonky animation and frustrating elements. I found myself constantly thinking about it when not playing and trying to come up with new ways and ideas that would allow me to finally get to the crux of what was happening and why. It’s also well worth getting another mind in on the action to help guide the storyline along in angles you haven’t thought about which essentially turns it into a brilliant two-player game and a real talking point.
It's an incredible achievement for a solo developer, and thanks to its inclusion in Xbox Game Pass, something that plenty of players should at least try – you may find the performances, mystery and intrigue of this small urban apartment are some you just have to experience. Perhaps you can break the loop and discover what's happening to you – and why.
Twelve Minutes is a truly phenomenal experience hindered only by forgivable a few gameplay bumps and the immense patience it takes to succeed.
In the end, my time with Twelve Minutes was time well spent. The puzzling narrative will have you constantly seeking answers while also raising even more questions. While the gameplay isn’t perfect, it works for this style of game with a visual design to match. The performances are a major highlight, and really push this game higher in the production department. I would honestly watch this if it were a movie. Overall, it’s a fantastic study of the human mind and how it adapts to patterns and acquiring information.
Twelve Minutes is a production that stands out for its originality and what it wants to do, but the dialogue should have been more diverse.
Review in Turkish | Read full review