There’s a puzzle in adventure game Gabriel Knight 3 infamous for being so illogical that ‘the cat hair mustache’ has become the bad puzzle that all others are compared against – the pinnacle of design that makes you ask yourself, “How the hell was I ever supposed to think of that?” I had that exact feeling while playing 12 Minutes, which uses a time loop to let you live out its frustrating and obtuse puzzles again and again and again.
You start 12 Minutes as a nameless man coming home to your small apartment, where your wife greets you warmly with a candlelit dessert and a surprise: she’s pregnant. A few minutes later, a cop kicks down the door, accuses your wife of being a murderer and strangles you to death. Enter the time loop: still gasping for air, you reappear at the apartment door. How do you stop the cop from killing you, armed with the knowledge of what happens next?
Early on I thought the answer would lie in picking apart every action the characters in 12 Minutes take, but after a few basic discoveries, 12 Minutes becomes a game of rote incremental progress. The first time I figured out how to knock out the cop and start asking him questions it felt like a victory, but by the time I finished 12 Minutes I’d gone through the same steps at least a dozen times, trying to find new story paths branching off from every decision. It was never rewarding.
Denne historien er fra November 2021-utgaven av PC Gamer.
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Denne historien er fra November 2021-utgaven av PC Gamer.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
BITING BACK
The tooth is out there in adventure TEETH OF GLASS
SMOKE ALARM
THE INVISIBLE SMOKE FACTORY is back in a Flash
MECH ME OVER
Move over Mario, here's mech-based platforming in ARMORED SHELL NIGHTJAR
"I like Pillars of Eternity better than Baldur's Gate III"
PILLARS OF ETERNITY deserves a bigger space in the CRPG pantheon
"A harrowing dark fantasy about hapless, bright-eyed children"
Spelunking into hell with MADE IN ABYSS: BINARY STAR FALLING INTO DARKNESS
THE IMMORTAL LOCK
A massive, meaty game in a single horrific Quake map.
NEW MANOEUVRES
Building a dedicated sim racing space in an average family house
OVERWATCH 2
Save me space girl.
REET GOOD TIME
THANK GOODNESS YOU'RE HERE is a riotous recreation of Yorkshire
THE PLUCKY SQUIRE
How many games let you make friends with a MtG card?