twelve minutes

brady12

so who playing this ? two hours out into it so far . it's good . might have hit a small bit of a wall there so giving it a small break

quokula

I really liked the look of it in the trailers, but it's been reviewing pretty badly. Free on Gamepass though so will definitely get round to it.

johnny_ultimate

Just finished it. It ain’t great to say the least. The ending is farcically, obnoxiously terrible to a near game-ruining degree. Some genuine moments of satisfaction when you figure out how to progress things, and some of the presentation is rather striking. But it isn’t even the best new time loop game I’ve played in the last few weeks (that’d be the Forgotten City). Lots of frustrating game and narrative design decisions. A real disappointment after such a long time in development.

DeSelby83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117781996#Comment_117781996

How long did it take you to finish it?

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117782245#Comment_117782245

Just under four hours all-in-all.

Playing it over the last few nights, was looking forward to it but it's incredibly frustrating to have to set things up over and over to see if a new dialogue will open up. I'm about half way I'd say based on what johnny said and so far you do one of two things to progress

Spoiler Warning

Either drug your wife or convince her you are in a time loop. I took me the longest time to think to use the phone are a certain point in order to change the outcome.

In other games I've played with loops it's not been as frustrating as you have more to work with, here because the options are very limited you feel like an idiot for missing something obvious having played it out 10 times and not thought of it.

johnny_ultimate

Yeah it really doesn’t reward experimentation at times because you’ll hit a dead end for arbitrary or silly reasons and just need to start again. That’s something inherent in the basic idea, but there were definitely frustrating parts where I just got stuck in the loop with little progress til I found out the very precise thing the game wanted me to do.

The terrible writing is the worst part of the game, but it’s amazingly janky for a game with such limited space and content. The characters move in a real unnatural way, and the path finding just straight up breaks at times. Even interacting with things can be awkward and janky - like the characters just pause awkwardly when you try to get your character to speak to them, or two very different actions being separated by just a few pixels. A weird lack of polish in places too - like having to click one object to switch to a first person view simply to click on an entirely separate object. It doesn’t feel great to play at all, and often the way the plot progresses or moves on feels completely unnatural or contrived.

Definitely dislike it more the more I think about it. There are a handful of solid ‘eureka’ moments like any puzzle game, but really it’s just a fairly bad game overall.

When I think of the 22 minutes of bliss that was Outer Wilds this game doesn't rate at all does it?

Also I feel like from what I've seen so far the twelve minutes is a lie in certain situations too.

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johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117799806#Comment_117799806

Definitely - it feels like the game 'cheats' with its loop more than I'd like. Without going deep into spoilers... you can, for example, persuade 'the wife' to leave the apartment. This can be done within a minute or so of the loop starting. Usually, 'the cop' doesn't show up until around 4-5 minutes into the loop. But if the wife leaves he just shows up early and brings her back to the apartment so the same situations play out as normal.

Feels like a fundamental betrayal of the concept, honestly. I know other time loop games probably use similar tricks for practical reasons, but certainly not as overtly and cheekily as was the case here.

Finished tonight and dear god, what an absolute joke of a plot. It crossed my mind last night but I thought there would be way more too it. I was only only loop from the ending I even played around with the last loop to get various outcomes and none redeemed the game.

EDIT: I did have to look up how to do some of the others for achievements but a real let down from a game I was really looking forward to.

johnny_ultimate

To give the ending some credit…

Spoiler Warning

… the fact that the ‘true ending’ deletes your save file and forces you to start again is a small mercy after the bullshit they’ve just made you sit through 😆

You can also just

Spoiler Warning

do nothing as soon as you enter the apartment on the first loop and it's the game over too which was a better ending than the others.

😄

johnny_ultimate

The only real, canon ending is when you uninstall the game in disgust.

hellsing101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117804865#Comment_117804865

Light your xbox on fire and sit in the corner and cry because your mind has been abused by the absurd plot.

The game is very much a Willem Defoe type of affair.

_CreeD_

I was intrigued, gave it three runs, I was bored, it was uninstalled.

The strongest part of that whole experience? Simplicity of choice in deciding it was not for me.