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12 Minutes is Groundhog Day with more murder but less Bill Murray

That's one for each monkey

The trailer for 12 Minutes opens on a tangibly moody, dimly lit scene of a woman and her husband, who then proceeds to use his knowledge of the future to correctly guess the contents of the elegantly-wrapped gift she's just plopped on the table. I have to say, this is generally one of the more dickheadish things you could use your powers of foresight for. Your loved one comes home, evidently excited for you to find out what they've got in that gift wrapped box, and you're just like "Gooigi body pillow, innit? Already know love," completely killing the mood. Nice use of powers, mate. "I swear to only use this power to suck all joy from the gift of giving." said the dickhead.

In his defence, we do see both him and his wife get murdered, beaten and arrested by a home-invading police detective a few moments later. I suppose if you do find yourself in a situation where you need to reveal that you're basically a less-useless Bran Stark, it's probably best to do it with something a bit easier to swallow than murder, first. Anyway, don't take my bloated words for it, feast your peepers on the excellent trailer below.

Watch on YouTube

12 Minutes was announced years ago and a playable build was circulating as early as 2015, but its creator, Luis Antonio, was at the time the environment artist on The Witness. Now that game is finished and out, Antonio has been working on finishing the game.

According to the official website, 12 Minutes places the player in the role of a husband who's doomed to relive the events of his wife's murder at the hands of a police detective. The police detective, for his part, is convinced your wife has also been up to a spot of murder. So, murder all round then.

Both the story consultant and sound designer for What Remains of Edith Finch are on board, as well as James Stout, who worked with Antonio on environmental art in The Witness[correction: Stout worked on the iOS port of The Witness, after Antonio left]. The game is published by Annapurna, who unleashed Donut County, Gorgoa, and recently Outer Wilds. The game is due for release sometime in 2020.

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Nic Reuben avatar
Nic Reuben is secretly several Skaven in a trenchcoat that have somehow developed a predilection for weird fiction, onion bhajis, RPGs, FPS, Immersive Sims, FromSoftware titles and Strategy Games that tell emergent stories.
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