12 Minutes Is a Riveting Groundhog Day-Style Murder Mystery

By Ryan McCaffrey

12 Minutes had me at minute one, but playing it only reinforced my gut reaction to it: this is my favorite new game from E3 2019, and if it’s not already on your radar, it’s time to rectify that. The concept is a clever mashup of a roguelike and a traditional point-and-click adventure game, viewed from a top-down perspective: playing as the husband, you and your wife are sitting down to dinner, where she wants to share some big news. She’s prepared something special to eat, and she asks you to set the table. But you can do anything you like and your wife will react. If you sit on the couch, she’ll sit next to you and cuddle in front of the TV. You can wander the apartment – I saw a bathroom, bedroom, and a closet – and it doesn’t appear you can leave. Dialogue options change based on your choices.

It all seems pretty normal until a man purporting to be a police officer comes to the door. Your wife answers, and he handcuffs her and has her lay on her stomach on the ground and accuses her of the murder of her father. At first, when you try to react in any way, he ties you up too, and the real-time 12-minute loop starts all over again. And it keeps happening, over and over, like the classic 1993 Bill Murray comedy Groundhog Day, until you can figure out what’s going on. The goal in each new loop is to learn more and more about the situation that’s unfolding. For instance, on my second loop, I put a kitchen knife in my inventory and tried to use it to cut my hand restraints free after the cop came in again. He then killed me, resetting the loop.

So I explored the apartment more. I found a ventilation grate in the bedroom, so I removed it and hid the knife inside. I talked to my wife some more, telling her what was about to happen before it happened. She was understandably perplexed, and so I was unable to convince her to leave the apartment with me. The cop forced his way in and restrained us both. Loop over. On the next round, I hid in the living room closet, found a cell phone in my wife’s purse, and waited for him to come in again. I called 911 – you have to actually dial, leading me to wonder if you’ll eventually need or want to call other phone numbers to try and solve the mystery – and the police said they’d be on the way, but the man in the apartment found me first. Loop over. I didn’t get too far in my 20-ish minute demo, nor did I expect to. But I am now even more intrigued, and I wanted to keep playing to try and solve the mystery.

12 Minutes is being directed by Luis Antonio, a Rockstar alum who also did the art for Jonathon Blow’s 2016 masterpiece The Witness. He told me that an adventure game veteran should expect to finish the game in 6-8 hours, which is approximately 30-40 loops. He also said that design work is done, and the team is now focused on animations, which were admittedly rough in the early build I played, as well as voice work; I read the dialogue in text form during my hands-on.

Apparently, 12 Minutes has been on Microsoft’s radar for a while now. The Xbox team confirmed to me that it is the game that ID@Xbox head Chris Charla was referring to in this March 2018 appearance on Podcast Unlocked, our weekly Xbox show. Based on what I saw and played, Charla’s excitement was well-placed. I will be following 12 Minutes’ progress closely, and I highly recommend you do the same.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Podcast Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.