10 minutes with twelve minute creator

Recently, the Xbox Wire France team had the opportunity to sit down with Twelve minutes Creator Luis Antonio. Now, on the eve of the launch of the game for Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S and PC with Xbox Game Pass on August 19, Antonio shared details about the influences of the game, why this medium is perfect for the story he wanted to tell. and how you hope this game will appeal to and be accessible to people who don’t normally play.

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Q: How would you describe Twelve minutes someone who has never heard of it?
TO: Twelve minutes is an interactive thriller about a man trapped in a time loop, a bit like the movie “Groundhog Day” or “Edge of Tomorrow.”

The premise is that you come home from work and are spending a night with your wife, then a cop shows up at the door and accuses your wife of murdering her father years ago. You try to intervene only to fall unconscious and wake up suddenly at the beginning of the night.

From there, you must use the knowledge of what you know is going to happen to try to change the outcome and break the circle.

Q: What are the influences behind the game?
TO: On the gaming side, one of the main inspirations is the classic point-and-click genre pioneered by Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer with games like Monkey Island or Day of the tentacle. They allow you this rich variety of interactions while keeping the narrative relatively open. Others are classic old-school platformers with a strong storytelling aspect, like Jordan Mechner. Prince of Persia or Another world by Eric Chai, where they managed to create this kind of cinematic mix between gameplay and storytelling.

On the film side, I was inspired by how some directors can use all the tools at their fingertips to tell a story, from the camera, the set, the lighting, the music, etc. A good example would be Hitchcock, in “Rear Window,” And how he frames the whole experience from the balcony, forcing you to interpret what is happening from the same point of view as the protagonist. Another would be Christoper Nolan in “Memento” changing the timeline in which we see the story to convey the memory problems of the main character.

Q: Your story could have been told with a movie, for example why did you choose the medium of the game to bring it to life? How is it different from other media?
TO: I’m not sure about that. This was designed to be experienced and for you to be an active participant, it is an interactive medium after all. There is a constant dialogue between the player and the experience you are going through. They give you these sets of verbs and you use them to express yourself, and this simulation changes depending on the way you play.

In a movie or a book, the timeline of events will always be the same, you are unraveling the information in your head, but you cannot change anything based on what is happening.

Q: The time cycle is always complicated to handle, what does it mean for you in terms of storytelling?
TO: Personally, I found it more liberating, especially considering the medium I’m working in.

Games, by nature, are cycles of time: every time you do something that the game considers a “mistake” or incorrect, usually you are returned to the beginning of the level and you must repeat it.

And here that can naturally be incorporated as part of the narrative. The way games penalize you for your mistakes ends up being as valid as what is generally seen as a progression, you are accumulating knowledge that will help you later. The element of repetition becomes somewhat liberating and reinforces the aspect of experimentation and the reward for doing it.

Q: You said you wanted to attract people who don’t usually play video games, how do you do it? Do you also want to attract the main players, and if so, is it difficult to make a game aimed at multiple audiences?
TO: I think targeting non-players doesn’t affect the title’s appeal to mainstream players in any way.

The goal was to make something accessible in the way you interact with it, but without compromising the experience, the puzzles, or the game.

Everything you expect in terms of challenges and complexity is still there, but it is more accessible, eliminating problems like dealing with a first-person camera or having a complex set of controls to interact with the game environment.

Q: Why did you choose the top-down view for the game? How do you manage to convey emotions through this perspective?
TO: At the beginning the top-down was used because it was easier for me to design the game since I was learning to code at the same time. Only 2 axes for movement and no need to figure out the camera controls.

As the game developed, I never found a reason to change the camera angle. It makes navigation easy, I don’t have to deal with detailed facial expressions that take a lot of development time, and the technology is not quite ready yet, especially for games with a lot of narrative.

Eventually, it became the signature of this title. You can know immediately when a screenshot is from Twelve minutes. On top of that, it fits the themes I’m looking for, creating a claustrophobic and voyeuristic perception of events as you play.

On the emotional side, we realized that just by having body movement and voice acting, you end up imagining how they must feel while interacting, making everything more personal.

Q: The voiceover is by a star-studded cast, was that important in your opinion?
TO: The gameplay works without voice acting, but the premise revolves around you worrying about what happens to these characters, shaping what you decide to do. We also wanted to bridge the gap between the movie and the games, in the sense that it is an interactive thriller, and the narrative is not just a scene, it is closely tied to what you are doing. So having this incredibly talented cast helped us get closer to both of these goals and elevate the material at the same time.

Q: What do you think of Xbox Game Pass as a player and as a developer?
TO: As a consumer, services like Netflix or Spotify are the way to go. It makes it easier to choose what you want to consume and to try things you wouldn’t otherwise do.

And Xbox Game Pass is the same way, you can browse such a varied catalog and risk stepping out of your comfort zone and hopefully finding some gems that you would have otherwise missed. As a developer, I am glad that we have a wider audience that will be able to experience the game.

Q: How excited are you that fans are finally experiencing Twelve minutes When will it be released on August 19?
TO: I am very excited. It has been a long road but we are finally here. The journey has been a lot of fun and I love developing games, but they are meant to be played and that is finally happening.

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Twelve minutes will be available on Thursday, August 19 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S, PC and with Xbox Game Pass.