Overview
Twelve Minutes is a puzzle solving adventure developed by Luis Antonio. The protagonist returns home as usual, but is trapped in a looping twelve-minute time period, and must find a way out of this time loop. Five minutes later, a policeman arrives and tries to kill the protagonist and his wife, so there is also a puzzle element of how to deal with him. It is worth noting that there are a lot of divergences, and even the slightest thing is not ignored, and things can take a different turn.
However, the main thing is the story, and although the ending itself is rather common, I think the process of all the characters and key items converging into a single incident is brilliant.
Tutorial
It starts with an explanation of the controls. This is a type of game where you specify where you want the character to go, and the main character moves where you point with the cursor.
After exiting the elevator, you will be able to examine the paintings on the left and right, but there is nothing special about them (the red book in the painting on the left may be to impress you, as it is one of the key items in the game).
Go up and examine the ornamental plant by the wall. Get the “Fake Rock” from the top of the sand in the pot.
Move the cursor to the top of the screen and use the fake rock to get the “House Keys”.
Drag and drop the house key onto the main entrance door and enter the room.
Loop 1
Ending A
It seems that this ending can only be seen in the phase before the loop. Please note that you cannot see it after ending C or any other ending.
When you enter the room, do not operate anything and wait patiently. Your wife will ask you to sit down on the couch. Keep listening to what she has to say.
What she is going to confide in you will be revealed in the process of advancing to Ending D.
As they continue to do nothing, they walk out of the room.
Although there is no staff roll, it does not loop but returns to the title screen, so I think this should be counted as one of the endings.
After clicking “Continue” from the title screen, proceed to the room.
First, you talk to your wife and choose the option of eating dessert (of course, you can also prepare your own meal by grabbing a dessert from the fridge and putting it on the table, or filling a mug with water). While you are sitting on the chair eating the dessert, your wife will give you a present. Open the present and use the baby’s clothes to get a choice, then ask her about the name Dahlia.
Then, after five minutes, a man claiming to be the police enters and detains them.
If you click on the police and choose “I’m innocent” they will strangle you and kill you. If you make any other moves to try to escape, the cops will beat you to death. If you do nothing and leave them alone, the police will tell your wife to tell you where the pocket watch is and start choking you to blackmail her. The wife almost says, “Okay, I surrender, the pocket watch is at …” but she doesn’t know where the important part is.
The next moment he is taken back to when he walked into the room.
So you will have to try and change the future that will be like this.
Loop 2
As soon as she comes out of the bathroom, tell her that time is looping. To prove it, first pick a window in the living room and tell her that thunder will be coming soon.
Next, go to the bedroom and examine the drawer to get the present.
Show it to your wife and tell her that the contents are baby clothes.
Talk to her and ask her about her father and about the pocket watch. After that, go to the bedroom and operate the switch, and know the fact that you are in danger of being electrocuted.
Go out the main entrance to reset the time.
Loop 3
Before your wife comes out of the bathroom, hide in the closet. Wait and do nothing. Then, the conversation between her and the cops will reveal that the pocket watch is in the air vent under the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Go out the door and reset it.
Loop 4
Next, get the spoon and the fake candle from the table (the candle is not absolutely necessary, but it makes it easier to find the pocket watch). You can use the knife on the counter instead of the spoon.
Note: I found that I could open the vent by dragging the key without a spoon or knife.
When your wife comes out, go into the bathroom and close the door (if you leave it open, she will leave the room and you will encounter the police). Click on the medicine cabinet and examine the black area at the bottom to find a vent, drag the spoon or knife to get the pocket watch from inside the vent. Drag a fake candle into the vent to make it brighter and easier to see.
Go back to the living room and talk to her. Choose the option that you know what she is hiding in the vent. To prove that you are in a time loop, bring a present from the bedroom and choose it.
Her confession will follow, and the secret of the Polaroid photo on the refrigerator will be revealed. You can continue and listen to the story with other options, but the police will probably come in at this point.
Loop 5
Get a “Polaroid” from the fridge to use.
Talk to her and prove to her that time is looping. Tell her about the night she ran away.
This time we have more time, so let’s ask her some questions.
Loop 6
Get the Polaroid from the refrigerator and the mug from the counter. When your wife comes out, go into the bathroom and close the door. Get the sleeping pills from the medicine cabinet and put them in the mug. Drag and drop it into the sink to dissolve the sleeping pills in water.
As soon as you leave the bathroom, give her the mug with the sleeping pills (if you don’t hurry, she will fetch the water and drink it herself). Then click on the book she is holding, and she will move to the bedroom and lose consciousness.
Move to the bedroom and turn the switch to ON. Continue to operate the switch to turn it OFF. Do not operate the switch three times. Then, hide in the closet.
A policeman comes in, operates a switch in the bedroom, is electrocuted and collapses.
When you examine him, you will get a revolver, two handcuffs, a knife, and a cell phone. Drag the handcuffs onto him to restrain him.
Talk to the policeman when he regains consciousness.
However, he’s only hostile and won’t talk to you, so drag your revolver to his arm or leg and fire. Then listen to him again.
As she pursues how she killed her father, a surprising fact is revealed.
When you have heard up to the story about the nanny in turn, show him the Polaroid photo from your inventory (if you don’t want to proceed, use the Polaroid photo and watch the scene where the main character thinks “this proves she’s innocent!”). And choose the option of who killed his father.
Next, use the phone you took from him and check your email. Open the mail at random, click on Bumblebee’s mobile number and call him. However, she seems to be in some kind of hurry and won’t talk to you.
Let’s go out the front door and reset. You can kill the cops to make them feel better about themselves! It’s a loop anyway :))) But if you do, you may feel a little guilty afterwards.
Loop 7
Once you have obtained the cell phone from the closet, talk to your wife. First, prove that the day is repeating itself. Tell her about the night she ran away. Then tell her about the police. As the new story unfolds, explain the relationship between the cops and her father.
Let’s go back to the previous topic and talk about her past. Choose the option about the Polaroid photo (note that if you choose why she wanted to sell it, she will leave the room).
When she sits down on the couch, talk to her again. Ask her about her past and ask about her father’s infidelity. Then ask her how her mother found out about the affair. Then ask about the nanny and the nanny’s children, and then ask where her brother is. Finally, ask who killed her father.
Then call Bumblebee. Tell him that Bumblebee’s father is trying to arrest your wife. Then, complain that his wife is innocent.
Let’s talk to his wife. Talk about the murder and choose the option to wait for him to come to you.
You will hear the police talking on the phone with Bumblebee. Wait until he presses the chime and don’t open the door (if you open it from us, he will hang up on her call).
When you open the door after the chime, the story will proceed and you will be asked to look at the Polaroid photo on the refrigerator.
The policeman’s misunderstanding is cleared up. The policeman understands that it was not the protagonist’s wife who killed his friend. It also becomes clear why he was unusually obsessed with his pocket watch. He desperately needed the money to save his daughter and was going to sell the expensive pocket watch for money.
It becomes clear who is the “monster” in the words the father left for this policeman. The main character is left behind (that’s very good).
I thought the case was closed, but it’s not…
Loop 8
At this point, you can choose one of two routes.
The first route is to prove to your wife that time is looping, and then continue on, while the second route is to proceed as in loop 6, detaining the cop and asking him about the nanny. The latter route will take you directly from loop 8 to the session scene in the second half of loop 9.
A route to reconcile with the cops and get the information
In the former route, first prove the time loop to your wife as usual, then get your cell phone from the closet and call Bumblebee to tell him that your wife is innocent. The new option is a trap, and if you tell her the real reason why her father is doing this, the cops will leave without entering the room.
Next, talk to your wife and ask her about her brother, then move on to the murder from the previous topic and tell her that the cops are trying to save her daughter using a pocket watch.
Then wait for him to come. As before, open the door after the chime rings. This time, the conversation between the cop and her goes on to talk about her brother. Finally, they will talk about the nanny, and you will get a testimony that her name was Daphne or Daisy or whatever, and that her name was like a flower. Then proceed directly to loop 9.
Detaining a cop and getting information route
In the route of detaining and questioning the cop, you first proceed as in Loop 6 to detain the cop, then ask him about the nanny, and the story will take a new turn. Eventually, you will get a testimony from the cop that the nanny’s name was like a flower, so you can show him the baby’s clothes and proceed to the session scene in the second half of Loop 9, described next.
Loop 9
You already know the name of the flower, dahlia. After getting the phone from the closet, this time you will get the present in the bedroom. Use it from your inventory to get the baby’s clothes. After that, proceed in exactly the same way as in Loop 8. At the very end, when the cop tells you that the nanny’s name is the name of a flower, drag and drop the baby’s clothes from your inventory to the cop.
Dahlia is the name of the main character’s mother. And it turns out that Dahlia was also the name of the nanny who had an affair with the protagonist’s wife’s father. In other words, the half-brother who was called a monster by her father and who gunned down her father is …
Enter the scene of the session. After that, you can choose any option you like or leave it unchosen to continue the story.
Loop 10
You begin to suffer.
Get the knife or spoon and enter the bathroom.
Note: I found that I could open the vent by dragging the key without a spoon or knife.
After closing the door, open the air vent under the medicine cabinet and get the pocket watch.
Then, wait patiently with the pocket watch you got.
Ending B
Selecting the option below will take you to Ending B. It’s not the end yet, so let’s keep going.
When the staff roll is over, click Continue. Then things will look different from before.
When you use the key to get in, you find that there is no one inside and no furniture.
Go to the bathroom, open the vent with the key, and take out your pocket watch. Click on the long hand of the pocket watch to move it, set it to the 58-minute position, and wait. When the second hand reaches the 12 position, you will return to the session scene.
Now let’s proceed to Ending C.
Ending C
For Ending C, you need to gain time for the session. When the session starts, click on the clock and wait for about a minute to elapse. When the father’s line “Say something” comes on, click on the red book at the bottom of the screen. Then click on the clock again and wait patiently for ending C.
“The stories you’ve created. But believing them so strongly, so deeply is unhealthy. You have to let her go. You can’t keep obsessing over her. Sometimes things just are what they are. It’s time for you to wake up.”
Don’t choose the option that comes up, but click on the red book sticking out of the bookshelf at the bottom of the screen (only once). This is the book that your wife was reading.
After all, it suggests that this looping world is the mental world of the main character.
After the staff roll, at first it looks like you have no choice but to quit the game without the “Continue” button, but if you click on the long hand of the clock and set it to 58 minutes, the “Continue” button will appear.
Click “Continue” to return to the session scene. Now let’s proceed to Ending D.
Ending D
In the session scene, don’t choose any of the options that come up, but click on the red book sticking out of the bookshelf at the bottom of the screen.
Then, if you don’t click on the clock, the red book, the choices, or anything else, and wait patiently, you’ll get to Ending D. The way the staff roll is presented is obviously different, and if you continue, you’ll have to start completely from the beginning, so I think it’s safe to say that this is the true ending.
The word “Continue” on the title screen appears in every ending, so I guess the main character will never fully wake up after all. I guess this is a scenario that can be interpreted quite differently.
Scenario Consideration
I think there is no real answer to this game, but I personally like the theory that the loop world was actually all happening in the protagonist’s head, and the only reality is the scene with his father at the end.
In the loop world, the wife is a symbol of the ideal relationship with her own sister that the real-life protagonist wants, and in reality, the protagonist’s father, who abhors and abhors incestuous love, persuades her in a hypnosis session, which causes the protagonist’s mind to go insane and starts a loop in her head.
The father appears as a policeman in the protagonist’s fantasy world, and since he is using the pocket watch to cure Bumblebee’s cancer = get his daughter back before she committed incest (cancer is a metaphor), Bumblebee is also the protagonist’s sister (probably symbolic of the sister the father imagines or due to the protagonist’s own guilt), and the protagonist who brought the cancer is called a monster.
In the end, the protagonist reads the red book as a last push to accept reality. The protagonist returns from the loop world, and his father keeps trying to convince him to forget his incestuous love, but in the end he can’t give up his love for his sister and returns to the loop world… is the interpretation.
After advancing the story to the point where using the pocket watch makes the hands turn backwards, reveal yourself as the killer and monster in front of your wife and the cops. Then you will see the scene where he is rejected by his wife and kicked out of the room. From this, if everything is just a hallucination in his mind, it seems certain that he is still suffering from more or less guilt.
There are many things that I don’t agree with, but since this is a work that chooses to leave the interpretation to the user, trying to find an exact answer may end up in vain. Let’s find our own answers.
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