Twelve Minutes (Zero Punctuation)

[@theescapist]

This week's Zero Punctuation episode is on No More Heroes 3 - www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/no-more-heroes-3-zero-punctuation/ - Watch it early on KZbin and support our content for just $2/month by joining Memberships.

[@hoeraufist]

I feel like you guys should put the ad/subscription stuff at the end of your videos. I know you want people to hear it, but it being first makes me think "ugh, an ad". As opposed to "well that was pleasant, I will now listen to your ad"

[@156football]

I was driving around while listening, missed the part where he said he was going to insert something instead of saying the twist, then watch an hour and a half of this game waiting to see how they weaved dog fucking into the plot gracefully.

[@Dreamspawn1978]

This games kinda lesser version of dreamweb

[@justinanderson267]

Don't listen to those assholes. Just spoil the damn thing. Now I gotta figure out what the hell is equivalent to a Labrador rapist

[@Neonlight3934]

You get the good ending by waiting whithout doing anything the first time you play the game or after the reset ending. Is more a joke than anything but is so you know It exist.

[@156football]

I was driving around while listening, missed the part where he said he was going to insert something instead of saying the twist, then watch an hour and a half of this game waiting to see how they weaved dog fucking into the plot gracefully.

[@Ptrrrrrrrr]

i laughed

[@atari4171]

i laughed aswell

[@MrMadmenProductions]

I missed that part, too. And since I knew the twist, I was like, "Wait, when did that happen?!"

[@francesco8000]

Yatzhee "the MC was a dog molester" Me "that's a weird metaphor, let me check what the twist actually was" ...few minutes later... Me "well i see why he said it's roughly equivalent"

[@MaddRook]

Yeah.

[@acidburnxp]

@@aturchomicz821 agreed. Not really. It was nice for him not to spoil the plot, but the comparison................ doesn't really work...

[@metazoxan2]

I also agree with him that it leaves you in a weird Limbo. like ... I don't WANT to encourge SPOILER . . . . . . The main character to bang his own sister ... But I just spent this entire game trying to save this man and his wife and now I"m going to go back in time and make it so none of it ever happened!?! That's just so unsatisfying! Actually when the twist was first revealed I was hoping it would turn out that the main character had an older brother he never knew about and THAT was the child the nanny had with the wife's father while he was born later with another man. But nope apparently he really was THAT child and while half siblings isn't as bad as real siblings it still leaves you in a limbo of not liking to ending but not really wanting to encourage the incest option.

[@abloogywoogywoo]

The dog metaphor is used for a bloody good reason, because there's spoilers that make us more intrigued, and then there's spoilers that offend and disgust.

[@hoodedman6579]

@@metazoxan2 "But I just spent this entire game trying to save this man and his wife and now I"m going to go back in time and make it so none of it ever happened!?!" Hey, Life is Strange did the same thing, and it was also incredibly unsatisfying.

[@drunkrdm]

i too would be disappointed that off'ing everyone in the game wouldn't have an achievement...

[@MzyraJ]

I watched a Let's Play where we were all disappointed there wasn't an achievement for spending a full 12 minutes on hold on the phone to a health insurance company while ignoring your wife screaming and presumably getting murdered in the background 🤔

[@hackcubit9663]

@@MzyraJ so many missed opportunities!

[@zerokura]

And you got They All Fell Down.

[@Taolan8472]

A time loop game that doesn't have dozens of hidden achievements is just disappointing. I want an easily referenceable list of my weirdass accomplishments to serve as evidence that your weird ass game was, in fact, that weird.

[@hackcubit9663]

@@zerokura or a more obscure reference, And Then There Were None

[@matthewmcshane399]

I also like the detail on how u can easily explain the time loop to someone else. Most people in time loops seem to ignore that tactic.

[@YuzuruA]

this is a joke in heroes of tomorrow - he teaches her to say just "time looping" and he is always onboard with whatever she asks

[@KeithFraser82]

Honestly, there are a lot of works of sci-fi/fantasy/magic realism/etc. fiction where the plot would probably go very differently if the protagonist explained themselves to more people. Sometimes there's a justification for it, but in some cases writers seem to just treat it as a given that trying to tell your parents the brooding bad boy at school is a vampire (or at least up to no good), or tell your wife you've been trapped in a time loop for the last seven years of subjective time, or tell the police that you saw some strangely dressed people go into that building before it exploded, is not worth the bother.

[@gmakerc1]

I think that the usual counterpoint is that nobody will believe you.

[@cheesi]

@@gmakerc1 I mean probably not, but if you're in a time loop you've got as many tries as you want to see if it'll work

[@Silverizael]

@@cheesi And you can always word things in a way that doesn't make it insane. Such as Keith's last example there. You don't have to say there are monsters, just say there are people with guns and you need the police right now.

[@SgtDax]

So out of interest (and the fact that I was unlikely to buy the game anyway), I looked up the plot synopsis. When I heard myself utter the words "That's fucking stupid", I decided my decision to not buy this game wasn't going to change.

[@Montesama314]

It is amazing how easy the gut works better than most critics can articulate.

[@tuckerjohnston1844]

So what’s the plot?

[@psugab]

@@tuckerjohnston1844 it's the main events of the game, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence, but that's not important right now.

[@FaTerokiMenra]

@@psugab Top notch answer/reference there

[@coltonallgire1135]

@@tuckerjohnston1844 SWEET HOME ALABAMA

[@bogixl8806]

12 minutes really does feel like a student film that you have to grind through, which might be the most unappealing description a game could posses

[@interlace84]

Yeah well I can call getting it on with someone an exchange in microbacteria, funghi, potential viral components and a chance at a couple decades worth of alimony... but that wouldn't quite do it justice, now would it? Summed up; a couple thousand general gamers left their reviews and 75% was positive; I agree! The mechanics, acting, story and atmosphere were good in this game, and as a random who went in spoiler-free I got my money's worth in shock/entertainment/surprise value compared to plenty other games. Didn't feel like a grind at all; it's actually quite speedrunnable.

[@simple-commentator-not-rea7345]

It's almost like if someone was just trying to make an artistic Oscar winning movie but was forced to make it into a video game. True artistic video games combine both their gameplay and narrative together to tell a story, the opposite of that is a David Caige game

[@AssociationAdmirer]

@@simple-commentator-not-rea7345 I thought the opposite of that is when you keep the gameplay and narrative separate and distinct so as to offer a fun gaming experience. David Cage games seem still very focused on telling a story.

[@JasuchinFaron]

Gotta love it when a game ends with "Yeah, none of this happened." as if we're supposed to be thrilled that our time has been wasted for literally no payoff

[@Oblivion9873]

"It was all a dream" is like number 1 in the donts of writing 101

[@WaffleWiz]

@@Oblivion9873 If it's good enough for Persona 5 Royal, it's good enough for time loops

[@hoodedman6579]

@@WaffleWiz That's not a good description of what happens in Persona 5 Royal; it's a billion times more complicated than that. It's also only the last third of the game that it would apply to anyway.

[@seokkyunhong8812]

That's all fiction by definition.

[@Oblivion9873]

@@seokkyunhong8812 OP obviously means in the context of the fictional world.

[@JesseGolo]

Honestly, after looking up the ending all I can say is, "I blame the dog molestation on the dog walker's incompetence and lack of moral character. Should have been more responsible with your pets." Edit: Spoilers in the replies.

[@JesseGolo]

@ashy I mean when you cheat on your wife, have a second kid and let them go without knowing each other, then you find out that they are dating about to have your grandson and your solution is to tell your son to ghost his pregnant girlfriend without so much as an explanation, I'd say absolutely. It's not Husband's (that's his given name in the game) fault he fell in love with and impregnated a girl he didn't know.

[@JesseGolo]

@ashy The parts where he's talking to his Dad aren't. It's the apartment that's in his head.

[@EvilSandwich]

Between Konami unceremoniously dumping David Hayter in favor of Keither Sutherland solely because of his star power from 24 and Peter Dinklage phoning in his performance in Destiny so hard they were forced to dub over him with Nolan North, I always cringe whenever I hear that a video game has hired a celebrity Hollywood actor to voice a role. Instead of just hiring an actual voice actor. Who would give them ten times the performance for 1/10 the pay...

[@downsjmmyjones101]

I thought they replaced Dinklage with North because it was too expensive/cumbersome to get Dinklage to come back for more lines for additional content.

[@EvilSandwich]

@@downsjmmyjones101 that too. With how little he was worth it, it was idiotic to even bother.

[@predcon1]

I remember being laughed off by a theatre class 'professor' something like twelve years ago when I told him I wanted to get straight into VO. He talked down at me and said I should be focusing on a stage career because that's where all the major VO talent was being pulled from anymore. I don't regret walking away from that class. Who knows what other mistakes I'd have to un-learn.

[@EvilSandwich]

@@predcon1 VAs just seem to get zero respect in the industry. One stand out example is the Christopher Robin movie where Jim Cummings's name is nowhere in any of the marketing. Despite the fact that he's LITERALLY THE CO-STAR OF THE MOVIE.

[@giloguy101]

the Video game industry has been weirdly trying to cuddle up to the film industry for a while now. it reached peak cuddling when the 2020 VGA awards had game of the year being hosted and hyped up by Christopher Nolan, who gave a speech about how the nominated games where all "pioneers of story telling", even though one of the nominations was Animal Crossing

[@StrikeWarlock]

This has been the most hilariously confusing episode of ZP I've seen

[@TeasGuideToThePlanes]

What's even funnier is that, as someone that played the game, I completely understood everything he said lol

[@Izunundara]

A sign that he's avoided spoilers very well

[@tripolarmdisorder7696]

You need to watch more ZP, probably any from 2014 should rank higher on the "Dafuq?" Meter.

[@StrikeWarlock]

@@tripolarmdisorder7696 I've seen all of them, this just happens to be one of the recent ones that fits such description. Resistance 3 is still my most favorite one.

[@tripolarmdisorder7696]

@@StrikeWarlock It's okay. I was just joking, I regularly rewatch the yearly mega-series' that the escapist finally added to their channel instead of letting a bunch of people get watch time on their own channels.

[@AngryBoozer]

You’d think they’d learn from Destiny. Good actors are NOT the same as good voice actors. Most actors can’t voice act for shit. Especially Dafoe, who is most known for excellent facial expressions.

[@termitreter6545]

Yeah but Daisy Riddley isnt a good actor! Checkmate atheists!

[@SoldierDelta]

I'd say, and this is entirely my view, that Willem does a really good job in 12 minutes. Sure he's not really doing his best role, that's a hard competition to enter by itself, but he does a great job selling the roles he was given.

[@Nechrome9]

No way, he was the best one out of the 3

[@asdaasdsa]

No they were all doing a great job, it's just their characters had 0 character. It's a pretty terrible idea to cast excellent actors to voice characters that can't develop by design because the game is a time loop.

[@crackedemerald4930]

I was excited when i noticed he was doing a jerma985 Impression

[@jordanj809]

This sounds like a game that’s much more interesting to talk about and watch other people play than it is to actually play itself. I personally don’t see that as a good thing

[@ayyguevara8448]

"perhaps 12 minutes exists so we may speculate about it" - Slavoj Zizek

[@Royal__Kitsune]

I mean thats kinda how I saw Cuphead. A game i liked talking about and seeing other people play, but not one id want to or could see myself playing

[@Wolfwood2057]

It's kindof like an 80s-90s adventure game where once you've cleared it or seen it, you already understand it. Even if none of the answers make sense, you understand it.

[@andrewstepanek8933]

@@Royal__Kitsune there's a difference between a game just not being one you enjoy playing and one that is better when watched. Amnesia is fun to watch but better to play, unless you don't like playing horror games. 12 minutes seems like it's just generally more fun to watch than play. Like David Cage games but less pretentious.

[@Royal__Kitsune]

Ohhhh okay, i guess i must've missunderstood what they meant originally

[@alexworman]

What makes the ending section worse is the amount of waiting you have to do to try one little thing differently each time

[@scunnerdarkly4929]

So many dog molesters are going to be disappointed with the finale when they realise you’ve slightly, albeit deliberately, mischaracterised the protagonist.

[@ninjakiwi2326]

You speaking from experience there pal?

[@PandaMyCo]

The game felt too eager to toss out twists without reason. You can't just surprise players with "you're a dog molester! Isn't this a fun game?!" There's very little else to the twist and it doesn't handle a sensitive topic in any way. Not to mention the gameplay loop leaves you frustrated most of the time.

[@descent3031]

It's also a pretty obvious twist after the point where Yahtzee mentions the satisfying first wrap up. Basically: "Oh no, Daisy isn't a dog molester!" "Well somebody is, and it can't be me! I'm Willem Dafoe!" James McAvoy *Shifts dog molesterly*

[@Valiant_Requiem]

Spoiler warning for anyone who cares: What annoyed me the most about explaining the time loop to the wife character was how you do it the first time. Your wife tells you she's pregnant, shows you the baby clothes, and you have these two pieces of knowledge that should easily convince anyone. Instead, for some reason, you can't show her the clothes *and* say that she's pregnant, you have to show her the clothes and also point out that it's going to rain, as if the husband character couldn't have been looking up before he walked into the apartment and figured out it was going to rain. That would be the logical response to someone saying, "I'm in a time loop and I'll prove it by saying it's about to rain." Having to look up that step annoyed the hell out of me, to the point of just using a walk through for the rest of the game. This would've made a better movie than a game and even that's pushing it.

[@YayapLives]

​@@Valiant_Requiem He specifically called the thunder and in some places thunderstorms are super rare. add to that the the news said clear skies and it a reasonable enough second prediction. It certainly wouldn't hold up on its own but add to the fact it's completely unrelated to the child/clothes purchase and I can stomach the argument. Given the fact that if he stumbled across her purchasing the baby clothes somehow he _might_ have been able to intuit the existence of a baby I am willing to believe her wanting some other form of proof.

[@Valiant_Requiem]

@@YayapLives The writers clearly didn't want to actually wrestle with the plot point they were writing. They wanted the shock factor of, "I've been playing a dog molester this whole time!?" and not much else. Which is to say that it's all a shame, really. Having the opportunity to actually discuss a situation like the one the main character is in would be weird subject matter, certainly, but it would at least be worth examining for the purpose of being the point of the whole game. Sure, the time loop stuff is fun, but if the devs want me to care about the "dog molesting" plot point, they've gotta actually make the characters deal with it rather than _just_ be horrified and disgusted. But nah, the devs drop a random plot point on the player right at the end of the story and then give no satisfactory conclusion to it, hoping the player will fill in the gaps themselves and insert some sense of meaning and completion without going to the actual effort of putting it in the game themselves. I mean, the watch. What the hell was up with the watch? No one ever touches on it. Nothing is ever explained about the mechanics of the world. They essentially hit the player with "it's all a dream" or "it's all in the husband's head" and then call it a day, except the point of the story ends up being that the husband actually is a dog molester and the wife owns the dog that was molested. All of it still happened, it had to have for the player to attribute any actual meaning in their actions throughout the game, for the dad character to do what they did. If the father does what he does, that means the details of his life matter, which means the wife's history matters, which means... on and on and on. And so, if it all matters, then everything that ends up happening with the dad isn't actually some profound "letting go" of the past to focus on the present. It's the writers letting a dog molester get away with molesting a dog and then hoping you, the player, will be okay with it because otherwise you just wasted two hours on a horribly written story and you wouldn't do that, right? Let hacks waste two hours of your life? Right? ... right? But yeah, dog molester main character gets put into a time loop because the plot demands it and then there is no significant conclusion to the story since it's all poorly written, in the end. Who could've seen that coming?

[@Jeorin]

The part that bothered me most is that the dog molester was unaware that he molested dogs. He came to realize it later and was like 'oh no I molest dogs!? I'm a monster!' Amnesia is rarely a compelling plot device, and hypnosis based amnesia is even less compelling.

[@HonkeyKongLive]

The main issue with this game is the tedium. When you have to repeat loops near the end it gets incredibly boring going through the exact same dialogue sequences and when you're not entirely sure what to do next it isn't compelling, it's irritating. The game has some great ideas but making the player go through an entire identical ten minute loop in order to do one thing mildly differently in order to hear one different dialogue line is just no good.

[@Eon2641]

Woulda been kind of fun if they included a way to skip dialogue and explained it in universe by the MC muttering what they were about to say under his breath lol

[@KeithFraser82]

If it doesn't let you skip rapidly through dialogue (like visual novels and Bioware games) then that just sounds painful.

[@potatosnake3158]

that's the cost of every time looped games. repeating every loop to find the way out of it with great payoff but in ths case of this game it hasn't.

[@HonkeyKongLive]

@@KeithFraser82 it SORT of does. You can hit the "speed up" button but all that does is speed through an individual line, you have to do it for every single piece of dialogue and then for certain conversations you can't. I don't get it, either.

[@MoonShadowWolfe]

Ooh, that's unfortunate. Yeah, I encountered a game that was a lot like that: Don't Feed The Monkeys. It was a cool and new concept, but it ultimately resulted in watching the exact same little bits of dialogue over and over, not knowing what exact little piece the game wants me to record and send in to proceed.

[@jguns3738]

So it's an "escape the room" game from newgrounds circa 15 years ago with a time limit and a professional budget

[@jknifgijdfui]

@@ForeverLaxx this game would of been so much better as a comedy the gameplay flaws would still be there but the writing wouldnt make me care anyways

[@jknifgijdfui]

@@JakobatHeart it was just called dont escape and dont escape 4 was way better than this shit

[@paulrus-keaton439]

The Stanley Parable for those who watch art house films in IMAX.

[@srbrant5391]

_Tetsuo: The Iron Man_ would be _amazing_ in IMAX.

[@ivanrzhanoy9389]

@@srbrant5391 Nah, it was shot on 16mm, so you wouldn't get much out of it on the ginormous screen. Besides, the whole grungy aesthetic is most suitable to DVD played on an old fuzzy CRT TV I think

[@srbrant5391]

@@ivanrzhanoy9389 You will get some _hardcore_ motion sickness though.

[@KeithFraser82]

@@djvibekiller You haven't lived until you've watched the complete works of Jodorowsky on a screen larger than a house. *adjusts beret*

[@JustinCage56]

Hey now, leave that gem of a game alone.

[@Wandergirl108]

I saw the end of the stream of this game, and I think Jack Packard's point about the main problem with this game hit the nail on the head: that the ending has absolutely nothing to do with what appears to be the main conflict in the story, and completely invalidates the rest of the game. What's the point of the home invasion, or even of being able to de-escalate the home invasion, if it literally has nothing to do with getting the ending of the game? I do like Yahtzee's interpretation that the time loop is symbolic of what's going through the main character's head when he's talking to [the pound owner] about his desire to [molest dogs], that's probably the most satisfying interpretation one could have about the whole thing, but just from a nuts-and-bolts gameplay perspective, invalidating the player's entire effort by saying the whole struggle literally doesn't matter just isn't good game design.

[@sdmitch16]

"invalidating the player's entire effort by saying the whole struggle literally doesn't matter just isn't good game design." My interpretation is that you have to thoroughly explore all the information on whether the relationship can be acceptable. The fact that no matter what, no matter how hard you try, the loop repeats or you go to a worse place is surely more convincing to the character than just being told it's wrong and thinking it a few times.

[@Wandergirl108]

@@sdmitch16 And that's a fine interpretation and all, but what I'm saying is that the game presents you with a situation, some characters, and what APPEARS to be the main conflict (the home invasion); you, as the player, feel that you're tasked with averting the home invasion in order to end the loop. But the home invasion itself is a total misdirect, it serves no purpose to the story OR game itself except to waste the player's time thinking they're solving the game's puzzle when they're really not. It would be better if the time loop didn't involve a home invasion at all; sure, that would lack a sort of climactic "final battle" and maybe make the player feel less invested, but anyone who would be invested would be invested for the right reasons.

[@facaelectrica]

@@Wandergirl108 they are directly connected. If you don't read it at face value, it explains his internal struggle.

[@perfectsynthetic]

@@Wandergirl108 it’s called an allegory. You should look it up, as should MANY others apparently.

[@Haaalp]

@@perfectsynthetic Allegory or not, it makes for shit game design.

[@nicklager1666]

This game really feels like a early student project from a young french game creator named David Cayyggeeee. But the lack of making the agent 47 look a like cop doing the dishes after the couples dinner makes me think that i might be wrong on my assumption.

[@IamHat]

You know it's really hard to convince somebody to play a game like this when the twist is that the main character is a dog molester and you don't tell your friend or family member the twist of the story, so when they reach that twist they come back to you and ask "You" What the Fuck is wrong with you and not the person who made the game. That's a really tough sell bud.

[@interlace84]

Yeah like getting someone to take you to a movie right after telling them who the bad guy is and how he gets it in the end-- a tough sell indeed -;) PS: Went in spoiler-free; glad they had to guts to go for what they did. imho worth the money, will buy more of their stuff if they keep it fresh and immersive. those plot points everyone's crying about in reality cover 1% of playtime and is not what 99% of the actual gameplay is about..

[@elegantoddity8609]

@@interlace84 Well you now how endings are. As my cousin put it, it's not about how the meal tastes while you're eating it, the ending is the aftertaste in your mouth after finishing. Even if I really like garlic bread, the taste in my mouth after eating it discourages me from doing so again.

[@interlace84]

@@elegantoddity8609 ​ Oh I don't see myself ever going through it again-- I went through it a couple dozen times once and that was enough and all in all, satisfying. Atmospheric, immersive, engaging and at points hilarious even if a bit appaling by design. I'll watch a disney movie if I'm looking for rainbows & happy endings; this was still good thriller stuff with a shocker side to it for anyone who went in spoiler-free.

[@interlace84]

PS: Don't believe me-- ask the 3000-or-so players who took the time & effort to play *AND* reflect in a review.. 75% of 'em were positive.

[@elegantoddity8609]

@@interlace84 Well to be fair, it might be that more people thought that was bad and then didn't want anything more to do with it after that. Personally I'm more annoyed by the vague "it was all a dream" territory we got into, especially because the last "save people while trapped in a time loop" game I saw, Sexy Brutale, had *this exact same twist*.

[@TachiFrypan]

Twelve Minutes is one of those weird games that seemingly seems to punish the player for 100%-ing it. What could have been a nice, contained story seems to go out of its way to get more confusing the further you play.

[@NineWheels]

Games where you make it so people aren't sure if they've gotten to the final ending yet sound interesting and maybe cool in theory, but it just leads to situations like this (meaning review and entire comments section) where people will probably give up before the good ending. Not that 12 Minutes' Good Ending is particularly good exactly IMO, it's just less suspect than the hypnosis one.

[@HiddenGemsReviews]

I played it to 100% completion over the weekend, and by God it's been a long time since I played a game that got so much worse the more you play it. By the time the big twist comes around, I wanted to stop playing. And then once the credits rolled, I rolled my eyes and made sure to get every achievement so I never have to think about it again. If you're at all interested in playing 12 Minutes, here's some advice: Go play Dinner With An Owl instead. It's much shorter, has roughly the same ideas, and it's free!

[@thomastakesatollforthedark2231]

What's the twist?

[@aldar8240]

@@thomastakesatollforthedark2231 well, spoilers, obviously: The main character is actually the half-brother of his wife, and once this is learned it's *further* revealed that the entirety of the game up until that point is just the main character imagining a future where he married his half-sister and realizing it's a bad idea. He talks with his father a bit and then a few different things happen depending on what the player does, but the only way to actually end the game is for the main character to agree incest is a bad idea and then decide to not do in, with the different endings being various methods of making that decision.

[@interlace84]

@@aldar8240 You know I could sum up a lot of the top 100 movies of all time like you did this game and have people think it's not worth a watch-- as someone who grew up on sierra/lucasarts dos adventures and went into this one spoiler-free; Yes the plot twist sucked but it was a true shocker, and the hours leading up to that were solid. In my first playthrough, at least.I'll buy more games like this hoping they find some other stories to tell.

[@aldar8240]

@@interlace84 I recognize I'm not the best at making plots sound appealing, all I was doing was answering the person's question about what the twist was.

[@interlace84]

@@aldar8240 You're a saint compared to almost everyone else around here :) no sweat

[@manavsridharan3811]

I agree 100% regarding the American accents. I start up the game hoping to hear McAvoy's beautiful Scottish accent, and BAM. Instant disappointment.

[@thejackal007]

This is possibly the fastest I've heard the opening ad go. Congrats on a new land speed record.

[@austinwarden9148]

This might be one of my favorite ZPs in a while. Now I'm off to go look up a playthrough.

[@SariaMarie]

May I recommend GTLive?

[@ramherrump]

Yahtzee himself played through it with Jack on last week’s post zp stream

[@SariaMarie]

@@ramherrump oh cool!

[@ZmannShow]

This might be the first time I've watched a Yahtzee review and agreed with literally every point he made... almost beat for beat I had the exact same thoughts about this game and it felt like no one else was having that similar weird, middling experience (people either seemed to LOVE or HATE the game)

[@interlace84]

bit out of nowhere maybe sorry xD but my first "adventure" game was Kings Quest 3 -- a couple pixels of graphics, heaps of words to read (and type) and hours of game-overs, save/retry and sometimes days of just being stuck and trying everything until you give up and try again a week later. Why the heck would people go through all that :| doesn't sound like a good time at all, right?! Well.. to me this game had that same something special KQ3 had in it's details in atmosphere/acting/story that just **clicked** and had me going through it to every very end. The plot twist's gross, yeah :/ but go in spoiler-free and it will hit as it's supposed to (just like how the main character breaks down over it) and summed up that's one tiny minute in all those heaps of twelve minutes you went through to get to that conclusion. Sorry about the rant; this game/dev is getting so much undeserved hate and the thousands of people actually playing and reviewing it on steam (like me) do tell a mostly different story.. about 75% of 'em are positive. My guess is most people on the extreme negative end (or on the fence) have either not played at all or spoiled too much for themselves to give it a fresh run.

[@interlace84]

@@MadWatcher you're a year late, skipped the "my guess is" part and are not making sense but thanks for trying anyway 😉

[@ewanherbert3402]

Yahtzee calling Daisy Ridley "The posh girl from the new Star Wars" makes me very relieved. I thought I was the only one who thought Rey sounded less like a tough, downtrodden Jakku slumdog and more like she was just there on her gap yah...

[@FrozenGoblin]

I think that, in-universe, the British accent is supposed to be a Coruscant accent, so it's a little weird, yeah.

[@Deimnos]

"gap yah" that made me chuckle :))

[@PolarPhantom]

Oi, that's posh voice discrimination matey! Wot, you saying posh speaking lot can't be slumdogs????

[@crimsoncrusader4829]

it would make for a good foreshadowing as to her lineage if the next two movie didn't botch it up.

[@NateTheScot]

i went to school with a hundred girls who sounded just like her. Posh private school in england. They all had porches and BMWs and shit and were "daddy's little princess"s and couldn't drive for shit, so for entertainment when school ended we'd go sit across the road at the pub and watch the girls coming out trying to get out of tight parking spaces or trying to park to pick up their friends etc. So. Many. Crashes. It was fantastic entertainment for the lads.

[@15oClock]

Twelve Minutes is more than enough time to return it on Steam.

[@jackmesrel4933]

Lol good one

[@jordanj809]

I tried googling this game’s budget but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. I know it was irresponsibly high for a project like this

[@Ramsey276one]

XD

[@masato495]

Read the plot summary on Wikipedia and can only say it's M. Night Shyamalan and J. J. Abrams level of twist, ie entirely dissatisfying, unnecessary, and pretentious.

[@freetoplayking7362]

Oh please, its worse than Shyamalan At least he only gets disappointment and can still pet spaniels without people calling the cops

[@SevenEllen]

"Unnecessary"? The story is about how lies and secrets can destroy lives. The nature of the twist is just one example, and it's one that's happened in real-life, quite a lot, by accident. This is what happens when babies who came from donated sperm/eggs grow up to meet their siblings unaware who they are.

[@CCartman69]

There are like 3 endings, basically just keep clicking the continue button on the main screen after each ending until there are 3 rings around the pocket watch.

[@BecauseBinge]

More than 3

[@jafaral-z1090]

i love that he's doing the addread as fast as possible just to spite nick

[@thatmonkemanzelinki2185]

This game reminds me of home, also an indie pixel timeloop game but with a horror theme and has more endings/things to do because it was made by 2 people that didn’t blow the budget on famous voice actors

[@pendragonchen]

What is your home like???

[@Deejy1]

One of the funniest ZP’s in a while. Great stuff

[@K4RN4GE911]

Top three time loops I've seen done not only right, but with actual fucking closure: 3) Angels with Scaly Wings. For what's effectively a dating sim, the loop is explained flawlessly and things actually happen, with consequence. Artwork is nice, too. 2) Outer Wilds. The hostility and carelessness of space travel with a rustic aesthetic and a time loop that can be trumped in one go if you know EXACTLY what you're doing, all with really well written characters. I could see a movie being made in the same vein as the Martian. 1) Groundhog Day. Nothing needs to be said, it's one of the most tightly written movies ever made and arguably Bill Murray's best acted film. There's a reason other time loop centered media is referred to as Groundhog Day Syndrome.

[@interlace84]

**SPOILER** Outer Wilds is from the 12 Minutes developer 😉

[@alechuntsman9524]

@@interlace84 publisher*

[@interlace84]

@@alechuntsman9524 Correct! 👏🏆

[@matthewmuir8884]

Play Majora's Mask. It was the first big time-loop game and it was really good.

[@Leffrey]

"The husband suddenly finds himself back when he entered the apartment, up to ten minutes prior.." is the best sentence in the wikipedia article

[@wcraven100]

" It's not good or bad it's just weird" I don't know why that really hit my funny bone more than it should.

[@abloogywoogywoo]

Do we get a Weirdest Games category for the 2021 awards?

[@mukulnag1578]

I literally through that there was something up with the vents also ... Like some object can be placed in them so ... Maybe there is cat in there ,that will drag something out ...cause u hear a cat a lot

[@Lycan4]

Got curious, and looked up the 'plot', if you could call it that. Upon finishing it, I out-loud said "What the fuck was that?" in confusion, and minor annoyance. Quickly followed by "People paid for this? People *got* paid for this?"

[@Lycan4]

@@pedropradacarciofi2517 I know that. It just felt like... with a game this dynamic, where you could attempt anything, even a peaceful solution where no one dies and everything's okay, *that's* the only way to get an ending? That's the one they went for? I didn't even play it, and I felt cheated.

[@MsHojat]

12 minutes having a really weird plot twist and ending was a good move for the developers financially. Sure it makes the game a bit worse overall, but it gets people talking like crazy, so it's definitely selling a lot because of this I think. It has 2 huge components that make a [financially] successful game: 1. It has something to get _a little bit_ of attention at the start to distinguish it from all the slag/riffrafff to get _SOME_ people to try it (not many people). In this case it's the voices of famous actors 2. It has the wild end, which makes a lot of people talk about the game, and shoot it way up in popularity. A game can get success without either of these outcomes, but it definitely helps. Usually the thing that gets people talking is the fact that it's a really good game.

[@coltonallgire1135]

*The End Credits have Production babies listed... Just saying*

[@Ramsey276one]

O M G XD

[@explodingtomahawks7589]

How many of them born because of dog molesters I wonder. Side note: EWWWWWW

[@ericsebena1734]

I blacked out for a second while I was doing chores and tuned back in to hear "But that wouldn't work because we fucking molest dogs!"...

[@Bhubnipz]

“It’s not good or bad…it’s just weird” hit me right in the chest. Such a confusing and disappointing experience

[@whitefox411-gamer7]

"There is a lot you can do in 12 minutes... listen to an entire ad break on a commercial radio station." FINALLY, someone else said it.

[@perianh]

I couldn't tell that James McAvoy was starring in this even after I saw the credits. Dude sounds nothing like his usual self.

[@wallyhackenslacker]

With the star studded cast this game leaves the distinct impression that everybody involved would just rather have made a movie but ended up making a videogame somehow.

[@kayhaich]

I only just found out Goro Majima in Yakuza 0 was voice-acted by Mark Hamill

[@AriZonia]

Having come back to this episode after recently being introduced to a game called "House" with a similar presence where every time you die or something you're kicked back to the start of the loop and have to figure out how to get out of it, and yet, that game seems better put together. The story at least doesn't have the stupid twist like this game

[@treyadams9719]

I also just looked this plot twist up and... well. The writer definitely read Oedipus and must have thought that big reveal is what made it so famous back in the day. Not that it was foreshadowed and hinted at multiple times, but rather that moment when it's confirmed. They were wrong. Completely wrong.

[@matthewford2532]

I started this video and proceeded to have a brief conversation. I started listening again just in time to hear the last sentence. You never know where the hell you're gonna end up on the Yahtzee Coaster

[@Pikminiman]

This review makes me want to replay The Stanley Parable.

[@kallistos87]

This is hands down one of your best reviews, I thought I was gonna die of laughter at the dog molester part 😂

[@WrecklessFantasist]

0:54 That fucking ad has been ingrained in my head since birth. It is genuinely the worse thing ever next to the car vehicle warranty scam

[@InsaneToats]

The forgotten city was an old 2017 skyrim mod, turned into a game. The fact it came out along with other time loop games is pure coincidence.

[@arunistrying]

You took the words right out my mouth yahtzee

[@CurtyTails]

Yeah I didn’t mind the game till I tried to get the final fucking ending-I had to get some help and yes the final ending is the one where you forget everything. You actually can get two credits sequences but the first one might not be the real one because you didn’t realize one super small detail would have been important if you just so happened not to look at two paintings on the wall OUTSIDE THE APARTMENT WHICH YOU CAN ONLY SEE AT THE VERY BEGINNING AT THE GAME! Which means if you didn’t look at them and you get that first happy part then you are shit out of luck unless you look up a walkthrough that just so happens to look at the paintings. This would have been better as a movie with specific shots to help the audience hint at things to come and that way there is a proper sense of things to return to without it being stuck on the player to force the story to go along depending on the player asking about one specific thing to get the final ending…. And honestly I liked the super dark fucked up twist but yeah it doesn’t make much sense because they don’t make it clear how the events happened in what order to get to that point. But yeah the dark twist is great but it I feel it and just about everything else here could have been done better by making this a short film-might have been almost as expensive too and that way we have the actors awesome facial performances to go along with it. A movie done with the same story could be amazing.

[@WrecklessFantasist]

0:54 If no one gets that reference, I envy you

[@spenceduggs]

If I had a nickel for every time Yahtzee referenced a "glass of milk with a spider at the bottom," I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[@nathanrivera7827]

When was the first time?

[@MissSallyB1]

@@nathanrivera7827 Dark Void

[@KintchD]

He's from Oz, I'm pretty sure he's speaking from past experience/trauma, that somehow resurfaces now and again...

[@chrisdaughen5257]

I think the weird thing is what happens after you get to the final twist. The game doesn't give you much direction on what to do next. Spoilers: You have to look at the clock for a minute before you can go through the ending sequence (which you can still mess up), but there are no clues that suggest that outside of the music.

[@aquamarinemystique]

I only came to know of this game because of a racy video titled "12 Minutes is a Pretentious Misogynistic Spousal Abuse Simulator" and uhhhh, that's certainly eye-catching. More intriguing than the game proper.

[@jordanj809]

I don’t blame Daisy Ridley for not being known for anything other than Star Wars. It is physically impossible to nail a higher role than that

[@LFServantofGod]

Not to mention the amount of time all those years she would have been unable to really do anything else.

[@kilssj2250]

The plot to the game is SO freaking Japanese-Mellow-Drama 🙃🔩⚾️💩

[@nikky8000]

I can't stand the trope of: SUDDENLY REMEMBERING ALL MY SUPPRESSED MEMORIES AT THIS VERY VERY CONVENIENT MOMENT!

[@bf842903]

"Was that Slow enough Nick" lol This is the only channel i need to slow to 1x

[@ernesto4091]

I thought Yahtzee was going wild with the pet molesting twist, but, oh shit, the real ending is even worse.

[@TheThunderbirdRising]

What is it?

[@NeoTrggrTheGammer]

@@TheThunderbirdRising incest if the article I read is true

[@Wandergirl108]

Please tell me. I have no intention of playing this game, I don't even particularly want to watch an LP of it, but I do want to know what the actual final twist was.

[@studentt6064]

@@Wandergirl108 you can watch the end of the stream where yahtzee played it. They finish the game in that.

[@timebomb4562]

What is the wife also his sister

[@bakasama7028]

2:50 I really didn't need to have that picture in my head.

[@jaxsteel2680]

I'm glad I looked up the story of damocles the night prior. I can say I understood the analogy you used yahtzee

[@bird3713]

I had no idea that Dishonored had so many A-list actors behind it and I've been playing that series for years.

[@theshrekening2157]

It’s good to see that I’m not the only one who keeps hearing that cars 4 kids radio ad.

[@hrnekbezucha]

"I'm not gonna spoil the ending, despite issuing spoiler warning two minutes ago." Uh, okay? What?

[@RatRatRattyRatRat]

>Twelve minutes >6:17 I was lied to.

[@i_just_got_here]

"I don't know if I'd call 12 Minutes good or bad." *4 months later...* 5th Worst Game of the Year

[@angeldeb82]

"The trouble with these rankings is the lack of nuance. Is it really fair to call Twelve Minutes the fifth worst game of 2021 if I was somewhat liking it right up until the end? In this case, yes, because that ending undermines everything leading up to it; if you get dragged into an alley by an angry chef and disemboweled with a broken bottle, your subsequent Yelp review probably isn't going to focus on the restaurant's lovely filet mignon." -- Yahtzee

[@-Nine9-]

I don’t think a ZP has ever made me more curious about a game.

[@abloogywoogywoo]

Curiosity in a game won't kill you, but it will fill you with regret.

[@explodingtomahawks7589]

Don't give into that curiosity. You'll despise yourself if you do. The "twists" are baffling and quite frankly gross.

[@micheljavert5923]

Now wait a second, I remember seeing something with this exact same plot/premise being talked about one or two years ago and maybe farther back than that. I thought this came out recently?

[@KeithFraser82]

According to Wikipedia, it was originally supposed to come out in 2016 and was being talked about/publicized before that.

[@moatddtutorials]

"A video game called Twelve Minutes? I'll review it in six." - Yahtzee, probably

[@ikkonoishi]

The good ending is not to play the game. This isn't a joke.

[@interlace84]

Tsk tsk no spoiler tags huh -;)

[@runarvollan]

The Last Express (1997) is the first real-time adventure game.

[@Zeldur]

I watched someone play this and didn't realize it was supposed to be a large title

[@Estolcles]

I am too stoned for the ad opening for this video. My name is Nick, and I thought Yahtzee was yelling at me. @_o

[@hugh_janus_g]

in fairness to daisy ridley she was also in that one episode of toast of london

[@Zeverinsen]

So basically: It had a lot of potential that was wasted.

[@randomguy970]

I beat this game in an evening and had a pretty good experience. But after my 10-12th loop I just followed a guide to see the story. Removed the gameplay frustration and got to see the story, and didn’t feel jerked about to see the weirdness of the ending. Seems like the better way to experience it based on everyone else’s reactions haha

[@interlace84]

srsly man there's gotta be some dude with a grudge out there spamming negativity with a bunch of accounts or sth :/ **DISCLAIMER** Comments on this Zero Punctuation review DO NOT reflect the average user/peer review landscape for this game.

[@gouth9515]

I personally like the fact the situation was a giant what if to try and explain to the son the problems his relationship with his sister would bring and how the final decision questions if he really thinks looking back at everything he went through in the loop would it be worth trying to keep taboo flame between them alive. We have so many chances/loops in the game itself to choose different things, things we think are right and some we know aren't right but just go for it because we have as much time in the world as we please but in the end it really boils down to making that one big forever choice, you can't take back some things without causing real pain and thats just how it is.

[@cpresto2]

There was literally a point in this game in which I screamed "WAIT, DONT COME IN YET, IM TRYING TO PUT A BABY SHIRT IN THE TOILET"

[@emiluhrbrandscioldann3097]

“Timeloops are becoming a trend” What did you call your new game Bethesda?

[@bilateralrope8643]

Deathloop

[@abloogywoogywoo]

Majora's Mask: phfft, _posers._

[@studentt6064]

technically it's arkane that created it, Bethesda is just publishing it.

[@ryke_masters]

A substantial part of how you get to the ending of the game is pretty interesting. And then when you're about 85% of the way there you realize it's pretty dumb and any statement on violence or morality it's making doesn't work but you're like, Oh god, now I got this far I gotta go the rest of the way don't I? And then the ending of the game completely confirms this feeling by being sudden, unfulfilling and not successfully making any discernible statement it doesn't totally undermine. But to be fair, the actual time loop segment as such is pretty well-done and well thought-out! It's just you find out it was all the service of a pretty dumb plot. The student short film analogy kinda covers it.

[@LK_tutturu]

just watch the obscure remaining endings on youtube like a normal person Yahtz

[@aldar8240]

idea: watch this video at half speed, so the review takes 12 minutes

[@christopherjohnston1471]

Spoiler allusion warning: Apparently, the truest ending of 12 Minutes will/would leave Yahtzee with the same feelings as Little Hope.

[@makeshiftparadox]

I feel like he got that ending, but it's not really clear if none of it was real, it wasn't even truly clear that that was the true ending. Besides, the bigger problem would still be that the game 'till that point was trying to get you invested into the main character's relationship, but you can't really save their relationship, thus you're stuck into this "I want this relationship to somehow work, yet the relationship can't happen because of obvious moral issues".

[@mrcraggle]

I saw someone mention something about brother and I thought, if this turns out that the cop and you are related, that's pretty dumb but maaaan I wish it were that because where the story goes is far far worse and I don't know why this was a story that needed to be told. Did Annapurna know the story before they got big name talent involved? Daisy Ridley and James Macavoy were both on Bake Off so maybe they're not that hard to get. Either way, this game has been in the making for years and the end result just made me feel so deflated afterwards.

[@CorimKnight]

Oh boy. This was someone's idea of a art house passion project, wasn't it? That's the only reason I can come up with as to why this thing exists.

[@sharrpshooter1]

I just read the plot on he wiki, it really is a wtf moment reading it fully, it seems like they had a full plot tailored and then they wrote themselves into a corner and ran out of money all at the same time, because I dont wanna actually believe someone thought out this whole story, thought it was a good idea AND THEN SOME COMPANY GREEN LIGHTS IT THINKING ITS A GOOD IDEA, cuz that's absurd

[@ethanlappin]

Ironic that yahtzee's attempt to extinguish enthusiasm for a game that might have been interesting is actually what made me want to play it

[@D_YellowMadness]

Sounds a lot like the twist & ending of Bioshock Infinite. And Burial At Sea. And Burial At Sea 2.

[@averagejoe5145]

This game isn't really my thing, but I was curious enough about the twist to watch a Let's Play of this game. The REAL twist is shocking. I'll give it that!

[@Wolfrover]

(checks) Well, there _is_ a good ending, so to speak, but it's counter-intuitive. When you first start the new game... Don't do anything. Seriously. The main character and his wife talk for a few minutes, she grabs the watch, and they leave the apartment. Game ends, no time loops.

[@TheSchaef47]

Those voices are literally the only reason I am even interested in this game