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Twelve Minutes
Critics Consensus (Skip It)
Twelve Minutes tells a compelling story that will sink its claws in, but overly repetitive gameplay frustrate the experience.
Game Info
A romantic evening with your wife turns into a violent invasion, as a man breaks into your home, accuses your wife of murder and beats you to death. Only for you to wake up and find yourself stuck in a twelve-minute time loop, doomed to relive the same terror again and again.
0%
Recommended
0%
Average Score
Total Reviews: 86
RELEASE DATES:
GENRES:
- Adventure, Puzzle
DEVELOPER(S):
- Luis Antonio
PUBLISHER(S):
- Annapurna Interactive
SERIES/FRANCHISE:
- n/a
GAME MODES:
- Single player
GAME ENGINE:
- Unity
Where to Play
WHERE TO PLAY
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RATING & REVIEWS
Ratings & Reviews
86
Critic Reviews
74
Average Critic Score
Where to Play
CRITIC REVIEWS
All reviews are from professional critics. Learn more about the critics VSG aggregates.
High Score
100%
Median Score
75%
Low Score
40%
What did you think of Twelve Minutes?
Player Reviews0 Votes
0
Ryan McCaffrey (IGN)
August 18, 2021
8/10
Twelve Minutes injects a compelling time-loop mystery into a traditional point-and-click adventure game to create original gameplay that complements its story’s curiosity factor.
Andrew King (GameSpot)
August 18, 2021
9/10
12 Minutes is a point-and-click adventure in a clockwork world that’s as expertly crafted as a Swiss watch.
Blake Hester (Game Infomer)
August 18, 2021
8/10
Twelve Minutes sinks its claws in from the get-go and doesn’t let go until the final, brutal revelation.
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Score Ranges
Read the Reviews (86 total)
| Outlet | Author | Score | Date | Quote | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3DNews | Александр Бабулин | 8 / 10 | 09-18-2021 | Definitely one of the most interesting, intriguing, fresh detective games in recent years, but I can’t shake the feeling that all the possibilities of a well-thought-out formula are not being used. | Read review |
| Atomix | Sebastian Quiroz | 80 / 100 | 08-25-2021 | Twelve Minutes is one of the best indie experiences of the year. History and freedom for the player are its strengths. Still, there are a number of decisions that affect the bottom line. | Read review |
| Attack of the Fanboy | Diego Perez | 4.5 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | Despite taking place solely in a tiny apartment, 12 Minutes delivers hours of captivating mysteries. | Read review |
| BaziCenter | Bahram Bigharaz | 8 / 10 | 08-23-2021 | 12 Minutes is a very unique experience with one of a kind art design, solid story and innovative gameplay, and while the time loop mechanism makes some parts of the gameplay repetitive, the final package still feels new, fresh and entertaining. | Read review |
| But Why Tho? | Jason Flatt | 8.5 / 10 | 08-20-2021 | Twelve Minutes is a truly phenomenal experience hindered only by forgivable a few gameplay bumps and the immense patience it takes to succeed. | Read review |
| Checkpoint Gaming | Sam Harkin | 8 / 10 | 08-19-2021 | Twelve Minutes is a game of dualities. It is very economic in how it presents itself. The focus is tight on three characters, in a small apartment that houses the few instruments of change at your disposal. This allows each little detail to have a nauseating amount of depth to it, including the fantastic performances of the characters and their backstories. The downside to this is that it can lead players astray, due to the limitless possibilities and comparatively limited guidance. Regardless, Twelve Minutes is a tidy and reasonably well-told pressure-cooker drama with few divots, provided you can follow the path. | Read review |
| COGconnected | Paul Sullivan | 70 / 100 | 08-23-2021 | While I was intrigued by the narrative, and enjoyed the performances, Twelve Minutes was an experience I’d had enough of by the time I completed it. There are just enough seams, jank, and clunk around that the act of playing the game felt like a task at times. I absolutely applaud the effort though. Twelve Minutes is an audacious first crack at a unique narrative structure, and one that will certainly lead to more refined and robust takes on this style of experience. | Read review |
| Critical Hit | Damian Richards | 6.9 / 10 | 08-30-2021 | Overall, Twelve Minutes is an excellent game, with an interesting concept and story. But, it is let down by rigid and stale gameplay, which hold it back from being a must-play… | Read review |
| cublikefoot | Chase Ferrin | 6 / 10 | 08-20-2021 | Twelve Minutes is an interesting puzzle game overall, but not one without its issues. The gameplay, while cleverly designed, can quickly become monotonous if you’re not cruising through the puzzles. | Read review |
| DASHGAMER.com | Mark Isaacson | 7 / 10 | 08-24-2021 | 12 Minutes, however, isn’t as fantastical or otherworldly in its stuck in time concept by comparison, instead providing a more grounded thriller style short story that, unfortunately, does have some issues along the way. | Read review |
| Destructoid | Eric Van Allen | 8 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | So with every repeated loop, and every new piece of info that leads to more narrative threads to pull on, Twelve Minutes is certainly fascinating to unravel. Some of it might start to feel a bit clunky, when dialogue starts mashing up against itself and characters move in awkward ways, but on the whole, it’s a puzzle I kept wanting to piece together, both fascinated and afraid of the answers I might find. It keeps the story driving forward, and if some deep, dark character drama set in a time loop sounds appealing, you’ll find what you’re looking for here. | Read review |
| Digital Trends | Otto Kratky | 3.5 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | Experimental and unique, 12 Minutes forgoes some classic gaming standards in favor of a stylized, cinematic approach. | Read review |
| Digitally Downloaded | Lindsay M. | 4 / 5 stars | 08-23-2021 | Twelve Minutes is slow-burning, despite being about such a short time loop, but it will seep into your mind and refuse to leave. I actually dreamed in a time loop last night, which has literally never happened to me before. The concept is solid enough to stand on its own among dozens of other popular time loop media (television, film, games… it is everywhere). The intrigue and deeply flawed characters are enough to keep one invested for hours, and even worth putting up with irritating console controls. | Read review |
| DualShockers | Rachael Fiddis | 8.5 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| EGM | Michael Goroff | 8 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | Twelve Minutes fully embraces its time loop conceit to amp up tension and provide players with a cleverly directed puzzle to solve. Discovering the whos and whys of the game’s central event in bite-sized increments is just as satisfying as interacting with its simple adventure-style interface. Its A-list casting and unanswered plot elements might distract from the overall package, but at its core, Twelve Minutes is a satisfying thriller that asks some dark and disturbing moral questions. | Read review |
| Eurogamer | Malindy Hetfeld | Recommended | 08-18-2021 | There’s quality within this intriguing time loop, though by the end you’re left wondering whether the core idea is a good one after all. | Read review |
| Everyeye.it | Cristina Bona | 7 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | Twelve Minutes represents a videogame experiment born from a series of suggestive intuitions. The choice to set the title within the confines of a small two-room apartment, combined with the mystery that constantly permeates the work, certainly represents one of the most valuable aspects of indie published by Annapurna Interactive. | Read review |
| Explosion Network | Dylan Blight | 7 / 10 | 08-19-2021 | Twelve Minutes ends up going for shock value and loses the small character moments and choices that made it so engaging. But pulling my hair out to solve the apartments puzzles was reward enough for me to want to see the loop closed. | Read review |
| Forbes | Unknown | Recommended | 08-19-2021 | Twelve Minutes isn’t perfect, but it’s one of the very few games I’d recommend everyone should play. While it’ll offer an experience many won’t enjoy, understand, or figure out, it’ll stays with you for a long, long time–even if its repetition results in Pavlovian conditioning. I now can’t hear my doorbell without thinking I’ll be choked to death within 60 seconds. | Read review |
| Game Informer | Blake Hester | 8 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | Twelve Minutes sinks its claws in from the get-go and doesn’t let go until the final, brutal revelation | Read review |
| Game Rant | Jonathan Ammerman | 4 / 5 stars | 08-22-2021 | 12 Minutes is an excellent narrative experience thanks to its chilling story, top-notch voice actors, and unique and intriguing gameplay loop. | Read review |
| Gameblog | Thomas Pillon | 9 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| Gamefa | Mostafa Zahedi | 7.5 / 10 | 08-25-2021 | Twelve Minutes should be considered as one of the most creative and special titles whose vacancy is strongly felt in today’s game world. | Read review |
| GameGrin | Adam Kerr | 6.5 / 10 | 08-20-2021 | Twelve Minutes is a videogame that is fantastic in every area, except being a videogame. There’s a lot to love, and I think people will overlook its faults. Sadly those faults are there, almost completely tanking an otherwise excellent piece of fiction. | Read review |
| GameSkinny | Mark Delaney | 9 / 10 | 08-17-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| GameSpew | Kim Snaith | 6 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | In the end, I enjoyed some of my time with Twelve Minutes. Its story is genuinely gripping, and the cast’s performances are excellent, solidifying the game as a believable world. In many ways, developer Luis Antonio has created something truly remarkable here. But so much of Twelve Minutes is an exercise in frustration and repetition. | Read review |
| GameSpot | Andrew King | 9 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | 12 Minutes is a point-and-click adventure in a clockwork world that’s as expertly crafted as a Swiss watch. | Read review |
| GamesRadar+ | Rachel Weber | 4.5 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | A miniature time loop thriller that will burrow into your frontal lobe and stay there long after you’ve solved the mystery. | Read review |
| Gaming Nexus | John Yan | 8 / 10 | 08-23-2021 | Twelve Minutes is a nice little point-and-click adventure game that will leave you stunned. Some points of frustration can make the game longer than it needs to be. Can get tedious at times if you’re stuck. | Read review |
| GamingBolt | Usaid | 9 / 10 | 08-19-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| GamingTrend | David Burdette | 90 / 100 | 08-18-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| Generación Xbox | Nacho Díez | 8.8 / 10 | 08-26-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| GotGame | David Poole | 8.5 / 10 | 08-22-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| Guardian | Keith Stuart | 4 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | This stylish, twisted take on movies such as Rear Window and Chinatown marries noir sensibilities with puzzle gameplay | Read review |
| Hardcore Gamer | Sam Spyrison | 4 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | Twelve Minutes features a compelling time loop story with strong performances that will keep players hooked, even when the lack of guidance brings that momentum to a halt. | Read review |
| Hey Poor Player | Andrew Thornton | 3.5 / 5 stars | 08-20-2021 | Despite not being a natural fit on console, Twelve Minutes provides a consistently engaging story that kept me tied to my controller until the very end. A strong voice cast and interesting central conceit make it worth checking out, especially if you can play it for no additional cost via Game Pass. I’m still not sure the story fully comes together, but it provided enough to think about that I know I won’t stop thinking about it anytime soon. | Read review |
| Hobby Consolas | David Martinez | 80 / 100 | 08-21-2021 | A unique graphic adventure, sometimes thrilling and sometimes frustrating, that makes the most out of three characters and a time loop. Not a game for every kind of player, but definitely worth a try. | Read review |
| IGN | Ryan McCaffrey | 8 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | Twelve Minutes injects a compelling time-loop mystery into a traditional point-and-click adventure game to create original gameplay that complements its story’s curiosity factor. | Read review |
| IGN Italy | Davide Ambrosiani | 9 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| IGN Spain | David Oña | 8 / 10 | 08-23-2021 | 12 Minutes is a statement of intent on the part of Luis Antonio, a video game that elevates him as a designer, and places him on the map after having gone through Rockstar Games and having participated in projects as disparate as The Witness or What Remains of Edith Finch. Now, he puts on the table his particular vision of graphic adventure, with a video game that exudes a love for textual enigma, cinema and mystery. A title that, at most, can take you a couple of afternoons, but that will leave a great taste in your mouth and, quite possibly, the brains smoky. | Read review |
| Jump Dash Roll | Luciano Howard | 5 / 10 | 09-15-2021 | A premise that had me at hello, but a game which I couldn’t wait to finish. It’s a puzzler with high production values but it doesn’t hit the right beats and consequently suffers for it. | Read review |
| JVL | French_Fantasy | 10 / 10 | 08-22-2021 | It could have been one of the most impactful indie games of 2021, it will be one of the big disappointments of the year. Despite an interesting concept on paper, Twelve Minutes completely misses the execution. Between obscure, sometimes abstruse puzzles and illogical actions, we hoped that the narrative would raise the level but it is not so. | Read review |
| KeenGamer | Andy J. Dobeson | 7 / 10 | 09-16-2021 | A Groundhog Day-inspired time-loop murder mystery situated entirely in a humble, three-room New York City apartment, featuring a regular couple and a menacing detective that comes knocking. Do you have what it takes to push through the monotony and learn the truth? | Read review |
| LevelUp | Sebastian Vogel | 7.9 / 10 | 08-30-2021 | Twelve Minutes show us why video games are a powerful medium to tell stories that cinema cannot. With great voice acting, outstanding creative decisions and original mechanics, Twelve Minutes is everything mystery games enthusiasts could ask for. | Read review |
| Luis Alamilla | Luis Alamilla | 7.5 / 10 | 08-20-2021 | 12 Minutes was a great game but not so much a happy one. It’s melancholy, thoughtful, and honestly rather difficult to process. But a game that makes you sad or challenges you to think about complex or uncomfortable subjects isn’t a bad game just one that may not be for everyone that’s completely fine. Some people will learn the twist of this and immediately regret playing and turn it off. For me, I was left dazed by it but I didn’t regret playing it, it presented vastly interesting scenarios and questions that immediately made me want to go on a podcast about it. While it suffers from a few presentation issues and some bloated puzzles, I still thought the pain was worth the journey. | Read review |
| Merlin’in Kazanı | Eren Eroğlu | 85 / 100 | 08-28-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| Metro GameCentral | GameCentral | 6 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | A clever and idiosyncratic time loop detective thriller with top notch voice acting, which suffers from circular gameplay that quickly descends into monotony. | Read review |
| New Game Network | Dylan Blereau | 60 / 100 | 08-31-2021 | Twelve Minutes starts off strong and pulls you in with an intriguing premise and interesting gameplay loop but is let down by a poorly executed shock twist, finicky controls, and occasionally obtuse puzzle design. | Read review |
| Nintendo Life | Stuart Gipp | 4 / 10 | 01-12-2022 | Ultimately, we found 12 Minutes to be a trite adventure that squanders its initial intrigue almost instantly. We can see how someone else might get a kick out of its star-studded silliness, but in a gaming landscape littered with time loop games, we found this one extremely tedious at best. | Read review |
| NintendoWorldReport | Jordan Rudek | 7 / 10 | 12-09-2021 | I’m certainly happy to have played through it, but with its late arrival on Switch I also feel like I expected more from it, in terms of both quality and shock value. The fact remains, though, Twelve Minutes is a strong mystery game that fans of story-focused experiences will likely enjoy. It doesn’t hurt that Willem Dafoe is a national treasure, either. | Read review |
| Noisy Pixel | Semy Rahman | 7 / 10 | 08-23-2021 | Twelve Minutes is an engrossing adventure that is more about the journey than the destination. It’s not the most thrilling or thought-provoking story out there, but it still satiates that mystery craving. The star-studded casting elevates the atmosphere, and the involvement of the player is a unique way to take on the classic point-and-click genre. Though you’ll have to suffer through lengthy moments of tedium and irritation, there’s a lot to unpack and discover in this intriguing tale. | Read review |
| Oyungezer Online | İhsan Asman | 7.5 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | Not the stuff of legend but still an original story that will stay with you after the credits roll. | Read review |
| PC Gamer | Wes Fenlon | 53 / 100 | 08-18-2021 | A clever time loop setup devolves into frustrating repetition. | Read review |
| PC Invasion | Michael Feghali | 8.5 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| PlayStation LifeStyle | Rebecca Smith | 6.5 / 10 | 01-12-2022 | Twelve Minutes starts off well but eventually descends into chaos. The game’s premise of trying to rewrite 12 minutes of a couple’s time is a great idea but the execution varies in success. Twelve Minutes starts well with a convincing story loop and gameplay that makes sense. Unfortunately that story loop becomes confused with a controversial twist that muddies timelines and morals. Gameplay starts to lean heavily into trial and error and some will give up before they see some of the later outcomes. Those that persist will likely remain confused. Luis Antonio seemingly had a lot of ambition with this one, but it hasn’t completely paid off. | Read review |
| PlayStation Universe | John-Paul Jones | 5.5 / 10 | 12-11-2021 | I really wanted to like Twelve Minutes, but by playing through it multiple times I’ve come to understand that in order for the timeloop to concept to really work in videogames, it needs time to breathe | Read review |
| Polygon | Samit Sarkar | Not Recommended | 08-18-2021 | Twelve Minutes is an uncomfortable journey — maybe too uncomfortable | Read review |
| Press Start | Brodie Gibbons | 7 / 10 | 08-19-2021 | While it manages to side-step its shortcomings through clever design, Twelve Minutes ultimately feels like it’ll be one of those water cooler games that some will love, others will hate, but everyone will just want to talk about. It tells a cerebral story while demanding your full attention, along with an unorthodox wit, to best its cat and mouse puzzles. | Read review |
| Push Square | Jenny Jones | 5 / 10 | 12-11-2021 | James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe do an absolutely fantastic job at bringing the three main characters to life but even they can’t lift the frustration and tedium of having to repeat the same actions over and over again. Unfortunately, by the time you finally figure out how to change the outcome of the loop, the ending will make you wonder if it was even worth it. | Read review |
| Rock, Paper, Shotgun | Alice Bell | Not Recommended | 09-13-2021 | Twelve Minutes’ time loop puzzle is layered and weird, but its short time limit doesn’t find the sweet spot between tense and frustrating. | Read review |
| Saudi Gamer | Unknown | 6 / 10 | 08-30-2021 | An overall fun experience with a distinct atmosphere, If you turn a blind eye to its bad gameplay. You can play it on Xbox Game Pass, or for a more practical option.. watch a full walkthrough on “YouTube”! | Read review |
| Saving Content | Scott Ellison II | 3 / 5 stars | 09-01-2021 | Twelve Minutes is a thought-provoking, intriguing puzzler. There’s a reliance on trial-and-error, even in purposeful repetition that felt painful to deal with. This resulted in reaching points of frustration often, which made the four or so hours feel that much longer. That said, I was compelled to see it through as each new discovery was made. As bizarre as it was, the ending has a swerve I didn’t see coming that I came to enjoy. The game is at its best when either the things you make a guess about or deduce, just work out, and your loop pushes things forward. If you can endure the obtuse design of its puzzles for the unraveling narrative, Twelve Minutes might just be worth playing. | Read review |
| Screen Rant | Rob Gordon | 4 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | Twelve Minutes is atmospheric and hugely ambitious within its tight time limits, although the game is held back by unsatisfying narrative payoffs. | Read review |
| SECTOR.sk | Táňa Matúšová | 6 / 10 | 09-09-2021 | Twelve minutes has an interesting gameplay concept. However its story is built on one shocking unraveling that lacks any depth and makes us go through pointless violence to cure a different trauma. | Read review |
| Shacknews | Sam Chandler | 8 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | Twelve Minutes tells a gripping story through a unique, time-jumping point-and-click adventure experience. | Read review |
| Sirus Gaming | Rhett Roxl | 10 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| Skill Up | Ralph Panebianco | Not Recommended | 08-18-2021 | Sadly, 12 Minutes quickly wore down my enthusiasm with frustrating puzzles, waaaay too much repetition and a truly bonkers twist felt like it was shock value for shock value’s sake. | Read review |
| Slant Magazine | Justin Clark | 2 / 5 stars | 08-25-2021 | The fallout of that ending makes what had been a wafer-thin murder mystery with a gimmick into an exercise in psychological sadism, where the player is nauseatingly complicit. Despite the immense pool of talent giving their all to breathe life into these characters, Twelve Minutes is a game thoroughly lacking in humanity, in any sense of the word. | Read review |
| SpazioGames | Domenico Musicò | 6.9 / 10 | 08-21-2021 | Twelve Minutes is a clever and well written psychological thriller, but in the end it chooses to abandon the logic and forces the player to act in a forced way. | Read review |
| TechRaptor | William Worrall | 7 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | While Twelve Minutes can be frustrating at times, the story and characters more than make up for it. Especially when backed up by the tight design and elegant visual/audio elements. | Read review |
| Telegraph | Tom Hoggins | 3 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | Luis Antonio’s smart timeloop starring James McAvoy is an absorbing yarn… if you can see past its frayed edges | Read review |
| The Escapist | KC Nwosu | Not Recommended | 08-18-2021 | Video Review | Read review |
| The Games Machine | Emanuele Feronato | 8.4 / 10 | 08-25-2021 | Twelve Minutes takes advantage of a time loop to tell us an intricate story, managing to motivate player’s creativity in trying to prevent seemingly inavoidable situations. Featuring a breathtaking voiceover, it lacks in credibility when it tries to amaze and horrify at any cost, while successfully managing to blow the audience away. It will give you a fulfilling afternoon, and if you love point and click adventures you shouldn’t miss it. You can easily see the first two or three endings, but unlocking them all needs quite an effort. | Read review |
| TheSixthAxis | Chan Khee Hoon | 6 / 10 | 08-27-2021 | Twelve Minutes has an intoxicating premise about a man stuck in a time loop, backed by a Hollywood cast of voice actors that immediately presents the game with a veneer of cinematic prestige. But just as it quickly captivates the player with the tantalising promise to unravel all its mysteries, it also loses all that steam just as rapidly with its unbelievable twists and unspeakable violence, resulting in a conclusion that’s as mind-boggling as it’s nauseating. In the end, Twelve Minutes can’t seem to rise above its film influences, as it grinds to an unsatisfying, disconcerting halt. | Read review |
| TrueAchievements | Heidi Nicholas | 4 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | Twelve Minutes unravels its mysteries so well as to leave you pondering long after you finish the game — I’m still trying to wrap my head around the ending, and I know I’ll be thinking about it for a long time to come. | Read review |
| TrueGaming | Unknown | 8 / 10 | 08-23-2021 | After few tries you’ll not quit, you’ll ask for more, we can’t imagine someone not enjoying this thrilling experience between being stuck in a time-loop and challenging puzzles. The name is 12 Minutes but you could spend hours to get to the bottom of this. | Read review |
| Twinfinite | Zhiqing Wan | 4.5 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| VG247 | Alex Donaldson | Recommended | 08-18-2021 | Twelve Minutes ultimately presents a compelling, thrilling experience that feels more than worth the price of entry. It has interesting things to say through its looping core conceit, and it’ll tease your brain more than a few times | Read review |
| Video Chums | Mary Billington | 6.7 / 10 | 08-27-2021 | Twelve Minutes plays like an escape room on extra hard difficulty and with higher stakes. As an intriguing albeit small-scale thriller with many twists and turns that can sometimes be frustrating, ending the time loop is ultimately somewhat worth the effort. | Read review |
| VideoGamer | Josh Wise | 5 / 10 | 08-30-2021 | There are, of course, multiple endings, and the minutes leading up to each resolution can be flavoured with violence and revelation, or laced with deceit. The question is: Do we care? | Read review |
| Washington Post | Unknown | 70FALSE | 08-27-2021 | I doubt that Twelve Minutes will go down as a crowd pleaser. If the revelation fails to move you then all that came before it was for naught. But if it catches you unexpectedly, as it did me, then Twelve Minutes may linger in your mind as an unusually effective high concept piece. | Read review |
| We Got This Covered | David Morgan | 3.5 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | At times maddening, but always fascinating, Twelve Minutes is a unique vision worth experiencing. It blends disparate genres and explores a twisting narrative using a terrarium of the mundane. | Read review |
| WellPlayed | Kieran Stockton | 7 / 10 | 08-19-2021 | Some devilishly clever puzzles shine in a unique take on the point-and click genre, but the game waits to the end to make its story truly interesting, which might be a little late if you’re looking for an emotional investment to get you through some of the more tedious moments. | Read review |
| Windows Central | Carli Velocci | 3.5 / 5 stars | 08-18-2021 | There’s a lot to like in Twelve Minutes, but when you start to get into the puzzles at the core of the game, things begin to get bogged down. | Read review |
| Worth Playing | Andreas Salmen | 9 / 10 | 08-18-2021 | 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. | Read review |
| Zoomg | افشین پیروزی | 7.5 / 10 | 08-25-2021 | Twelve Minutes begins with a pure idea, and in the first minutes, it depicts everything it takes to shock the audience. Over time and into the player’s own hands, game maker Louis Antonio unraveling the knot of the mystery of his game’s tortuous storyline and immersing us in an interesting narrative with shocking twists. | Read review |
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