Software:12 Minutes
| 12 Minutes | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Luis Antonio |
| Publisher(s) | Annapurna Interactive |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | 2021 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
12 Minutes is an upcoming adventure game developed by Luis Antonio and will be published by Annapurna Interactive for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in 2021. The game, taking place in a small apartment suite and areas around it, requires the player to repeatedly play through events of a 12-minute cycle to try to solve a mystery.
Gameplay
12 Minutes is played from a top-down perspective of an apartment suite shared by a man and his wife, including the main living and kitchen area, their bedroom, and bathroom. The player controls the husband during these events in the style of a point-and-click adventure game, where he is free to do various actions. Without taking certain actions, over the course of the 12 minutes, the man learns his wife is pregnant, but a police officer arrives at the apartment, accuses the wife of murdering his father several years ago, and in trying to arrest her, knocks out the husband and attacks and kills the wife and her unborn child. The game then restarts at the original point, at which point the player can now try to take actions to learn the wife is a suspect, how to prevent her arrest, or other actions as to find a "best" result over the next 12 minutes, otherwise they restart the 12 minutes over. However, the player is not given any exact information of what this goal is, leaving it up to them to explore how to resolve the situation. The man is the only character that retains knowledge of the previous cycles, such as knowing about the impending arrest, and this information can be used to perform other actions in future cycles.[1] This gameplay loop has been compared to The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.[2] While the main loop lasts only 12 minutes in real time, the game is expected to take a player between 6 and 8 hours to complete.[3]
Development
Luis Antonio is a former artist from Rockstar Games and Ubisoft who left these companies to pursue independent game development. He spent time in 2012 working to help develop The Witness before setting out to make his own.[4] For his first game, he wanted a title that would explore the consequences of decision-making and how these choices affected others. Initially he had envisioned a game that took place in a small neighborhood over the course of 24 hours, but this proved to be too large in scope for himself, and he scaled it back to a single apartment suite and a much shorter period of time.[2] Much of the design of the game is inspired by film director Stanley Kubrick, and as one nod to Kubrick, the lobby area around the apartment includes the iconic carpet pattern Kubrick had used in the Overlook Hotel for The Shining.[2] Additional inspirations come from the films Groundhog Day, Memento, and Rear Window.[3][5]
Antonio had premiered the game at the 2015 PAX East event, at this point the game using placeholder art but having the gameplay loop completed.[2] The game was given an honorable mention for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival in 2016.[6] Antonio had planned for the game to be released in 2016. However, in the intervening years, Antonio brought on a team of five to help refine the game, as well as obtained publishing support from Annapurna Interactive. The game was re-shown during the Xbox press conference from Microsoft during E3 2019, and with a planned release for 2020.[7] Among final elements to be included are fully voiced lines for the main characters, and improved character animations using motion capture.[8] As he finalized the game's designed, Antonio too a reductionist approach, removing gameplay elements to focus on the essentials he wanted. For example, Antonio originally had timepieces within the game world for the player to anticipate when events would happen, but later removed these, leaving it up to the player to follow on conservations and other cues to know when events were to happen and prepare for them.[1]
Voice acting for the game was provided by James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe as the husband, wife, and the officer, respectively.[9][1] Annapurna Interactive helped with casting as well as finding safe locations for them to record lines which came just as the general world lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic had started.[4]
Antonio stated an anticipated release by the end of 2020 for Windows and Xbox with ports to other systems later.[4] In November 2020, Annapurna Interactive confirmed that the game was delayed to 2021.[10][11]
The game will be showcased at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, where it will compete for the inaugural Tribeca Games Award.[12]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Sarkar, Samit (May 10, 2021). "A few minutes with Twelve Minutes is not nearly enough". Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/22425348/twelve-minutes-gameplay-luis-antonio-interview-pc-xbox-series-x-one. Retrieved May 10, 2021.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Totilo, Stephen (August 25, 2015). "Time Loop Video Game Gives You 12 Minutes To Not Die... Again And Again". Kotaku. https://kotaku.com/time-loop-video-game-gives-you-12-minutes-to-not-die-1726339199. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Tarantola, Andrew (June 11, 2019). "'12 Minutes' is a murderous 'Groundhog Day'". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/11/12-minutes-is-a-murderous-groundhog-day/. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Romano, Nick (August 31, 2020). "Daisy Ridley and James McAvoy delve into their interactive time-loop thriller Twelve Minutes". Entertainment Weekly. https://ew.com/gaming/daisy-ridley-james-mcavoy-twelve-minutes/. Retrieved August 31, 2020.
- ↑ Jones, Ali (June 10, 2019). "Psychological thriller 12 Minutes has been in development for six years". PCGamesN. https://www.pcgamesn.com/12-minutes/reveal. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Totilo, Stephen (June 11, 2019). "A Killer, A Secret, And A Time Loop Make For A Harrowing 12 Minutes". Kotaku. https://kotaku.com/a-killer-a-secret-and-a-time-loop-make-for-a-harrowin-1835451688. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
- ↑ McCarthy, Caty (June 12, 2019). "After Six Years In Development, The Indie Timeloop Thriller 12 Minutes Is Finally Nearing Completion". USGamer. https://www.usgamer.net/articles/after-six-years-in-development-the-timeloop-thriller-12-minutes-is-finally-nearing-completion. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
- ↑ Wilde, Tyler (August 27, 2020). "Time loop game Twelve Minutes stars Daisy Ridley, James McAvoy, and Willem Dafoe". PC Gamer. https://www.pcgamer.com/time-loop-game-twelve-minutes-stars-daisy-ridley-james-mcavoy-and-willem-dafoe/. Retrieved August 27, 2020.
- ↑ Khayyat, Mehrdad (November 17, 2020). "Twelve Minutes Has Apparently Been Delayed to 2021". https://www.dualshockers.com/twelve-minutes-has-apparently-been-delayed-to-2021/. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
- ↑ Oloman, Jordan (November 19, 2020). "Annapurna's 12 Minutes, Last Stop And The Artful Escape Delayed Into 2021". https://www.ign.com/articles/annapurnas-12-minutes-last-stop-and-the-artful-escape-delayed-into-2021. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
- ↑ Beresford, Trilby (May 6, 2021). "Tribeca Festival Unveils Games Lineup Including Annapurna Interactive's 'Twelve Minutes'". The Hollywood Reporter. MRC. Archived from the original on May 7, 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210506152719/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/tribeca-festival-unveils-official-games-lineup-including-annapurna-twelve-minutes-1234948692/. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
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