12 minutes, preview: Anxiety and Time Loops

Discussions about the duration of video games often tend to be less than reductive, and confine themselves to applauding the content without really assessing the quality of the latter. Sure, the different genres mate more easily with a huge range of clocks, but with interactive experiences of potentially infinite variety, video games are able to utilize game time in often unpredictable ways, providing more entertainment in more minutes than Some nicknames. Of watches.

12 minutes It appears to be a “rebel” of modern games. a’Illustrated adventure with a top view, Apparently Set in a fairly accurate map (At the moment, we have only seen a small apartment as a prime location), which builds its entire structure around A. Time loop lasting twelve minutes. Explaining in this way, it might not seem like the most attractive concept in the world to an average user, but we assure you that what we saw during the digital event organized by ID @ Xbox a few days ago was able to draw us further. Our initial expectations.

Jam Day

It all starts in a small apartment. Like many others, the couple spends a quiet evening, when it seems that the center of attention is a dessert carefully prepared by the girl. But things change when the police knock on the door, or at least a thug who claims to be a part of it; Everything deteriorates very quickly: they are both handcuffed and lying on the ground, and the protagonist quickly suffocates due to too much confusion. After a moment, you are there again, as if nothing happened … Yet every memory of past events remains, and now it’s up to you to figure out how to face the next 12 minutes again to prevent things from going the worst way.

It is understandable, As you can pretty well guess from the summary just made, it’s nothing short of interesting, edited It is a variation of what was seen in the well-known movie Groundhog Day (From Il Giorno della Marmotta), albeit applied to a much shorter episode. Moreover, the cinematic effects do not end there, since the project’s birth From the mind of Luis Antonio, An environment artist and veteran character who is even proud of Rockstar in the curriculum (as well as The Witness, along with Jonathan Blow), and who, inspired by cinematography and independent work, decided to learn programming to shape a vision that has been in chief for over six years.

We honestly found the basic idea really cool. Awareness of upcoming events does not guarantee that you can respond, And the short loop length with multiple negative ends spread here and there allows you to try many different strategies. For example, the first figure shown in the demo saw the protagonist hide in the bathroom in the dark with a knife, only to be discovered and disposed of soon after in a more violent manner than seen in the first episode.

Choices and Consequences

In short, the capabilities on offer look really cool. The controls are extremely simple, with Immediately noticeable interactive objects And a noticeable interaction between characters and the environment (just pour a cup for your girlfriend to decide to drink, and it seems that potential actions on different things or in conversations change according to your perception after the episodes). over there Perspective from above And the somewhat limited map – even if it doesn’t seem like the setup will be confined to the apartment exclusively, given that Luis Antonio has specified a tutorial outside – also makes the experience terribly intuitive, and practically anyone can begin to incorporate things or try to craft strategies to respond to the Attacking, sometimes wasting time with useless actions (trying to explain the state of the rings to your girlfriend only leads to questionable reactions at first).

That wasn’t enough, There does not appear to be any indication or indication of progress of any kind. Evaluate what has been done and the direction that has been taken is only on the mind of the player; It is important, according to the creator, that the immersion is total and that the player constantly revisits what has been accomplished without direction.

However, the fact that the game is independent should not be underestimated Productive values. The Annapurna publisher seems to have benefited greatly from his contacts, and with the help of Microsoft has also been involved Three heavy names in dubbing. The characters’ voices are really James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem DafoeAbsolutely not an underestimated crew. Moreover, perhaps also for the curious perspective, the title is also very interesting graphically, since its very conservative and straightforward appearance allows you to instantly notice what is interactive and what is not, and understand how to move with ease. However, we are not surprised that The work created by an artist blends color management, visual impact and structural design with such naturalness.