Quick Thoughts on 12 Minutes

12 Minutes is a new time-loop thriller point-and-click adventure game by the A24 of video games, Annapurna Interactive. Annapurna’s biggest success is probably The Outer Wilds, another timeloop game which deftly avoids the absolute worst part of timeloop stories—having to explain to people you’re in a timeloop over and over again—by letting the player character jump into a rocket ship and blast off into space.

Now, I’m all for new ways to tell stories in video games but the stories have to be worth telling.

The concept is ambitious, sure, but every element of its execution is poor. Right out of the gate, the decision to have McAvoy and Ridley, two actors from the UK, speak in American accents is baffling. There is no reason this game can’t be set in London or have the protagonists be English expats. The writing is stilted, awkward, and peppered with terms of endearment like "babe" instead of actual character connections and histories. There seems to have been close to zero voice direction: Ridley and McAvoy are fine actors, and there are multiple takes where their line reads are just plain wrong, something even an amateur director should have corrected.

You’re supposed to have a voyeuristic connection to these characters, but the animations are laughably stilted and awkward, the models frequently clip through each other, and the models themselves are mannequin-like and Ridley’s character (named simply "Wife" which is a whole other thing) has a distractingly perfect ass. Maybe that’s part of the point, maybe this is supposed to be some commentary on the objectification of women & voyeurism, but the writing is so bad it’s not worth investing in.

There is a moment during a rainstorm where you can look out a window. McAvoy exclaims "Heavy rain" and my god if that’s a David Cage reference, well, it tells you all you need to know about the quality of the storytelling here.