I love how Bob's brand now is just randomly coming back once or twice every one or two years to upload short, seemingly random, but still high quality videos about video games before vanishing into the ether once more.
Another neat little thing I've found when I combed over the rest of the game is that the egg painting hanging in the kitchen slowly turns into a snake eating its own tail, an ouroboros, when James consciously chooses to put himself back into the loop even after learning the truth. Such a cool detail that would have served better in a different game.
pretty much all pictures change. I write them down from memory so I can both miss some or remember them wrong. Painting with Trees: - Two large trees with a small one in-between during spring symbolising the couple and their coming child. - Same trees, but in winter, symbolising the darker truth behind it. - Two separate trees in winter, symbolizing them splitting up and the child never being born Another painting: - Two people, woman and man, together. - Two people, woman and man, together, with the man's shadow having the shape of a demon. - Two people, woman and man, with the woman walking away from the man. - Man being alone and sad, with the shadow still forming a demon.
8:21 that legit broke me. Is like James just got so shocked by the "Yeah, cute pic, So?" that he completely forgot what he was going to say and stood there thinking "Fuck, he got me"
I think the mindfullness ending being the true ending makes even more sense when you consider that the continue ending not only resets your progress, but also starts the game up again with the same opening credits animation, creating a loop of the entire game. I agree that them being siblings was a poor choice and they could have used a different trauma, but the core concept and what the time loop represents is handled extremely well in my eyes.
@@jonjoshelfy1228 I agree, people are way too sensitive and assumed that meant the creator supported incest instead of analyzing it critically within the context of the story. I thought that was a brilliantly shocking twist, and James had a completely appropriate initial reaction to figuring that out.
@@Neillan incest is a bad choice because it's not fucked up enough. It doesn't involve any pain or tragedy. it's just mildly weird, with a chance of birth defects.
@@jonjoshelfy1228It makes the whole thing seem weird and hypocritical. Basically everything that happens is the father's fault for cheating and keeping their family heritage a secret, but he entirely blames the son for what happened. So it just makes it seem like a bitter old man who hates his children revealing the fact that they're related as some kind of last cruel dig at them to ruin their relationship, since even outside the fantasy loop it does seem like they're in love.
@@MultiPerson555The thing is incest *is* enough. People who have found out that their relationship was actually incestuous have experienced trauma. The game is exploring how the revelation of something that is so societally taboo traumatizes people. Trauma doesn't have to come about from extremely fucked up shit, Idk to me that seems to be the whole point of the game! The main characters material reality is barely altered, and yet he's scarred.
From what little I know of the game outside of this video, it seems as though the intent was to have little inconsistencies in the story to hint at the fact that its not a literal sequence of events, but they were handled very poorly, and come across as accidental plotholes instead of clues. I think this is an instance where leaving so much up to interpretations hurts the story more than it helps.
I completely agree. Even hiding the clue to confirm all the "plot holes" behind a small interaction such as staring at a clock before your save file is deleted, a clock which you don't even know you can interact with or when to do so. That was such a poor storytelling decision. I even thought the game really ended when the first credits rolled in.
Game also has a bunch of gameplay issues beyond the bugs. Particuarly after the first part, it becomes a massive trial and error fest, which just isnt very fun. Bit silly how vague the story is, meaning youre supposed to pay full attention and interprete stuff, but then the game can become very repetitive if you miss something. The whole thing doesnt seem to be very well thought out. Its a cool beginning and makes for a great trailer, but after that too many flaws appear.
There's plenty more details that give away the loops are not literal but more metaphorical; first there's the plant in the bedroom, which starts fine but over the course of the game ends up losing all its leave. The same is true for the picture of the trees above the couch. Additionally in the hallway right outside the elevator, the picture on the left is a dahlia, and the picture on the right is a bunch of black lines with near the middle yet slightly off, is one red line; squinting your eyes it's easy to recognize this as being a minimalist representation of the library with the black lines all being the random uninteractive books, and the red one being the equally red book on meditation (and if clicked on in the library, gives the "forgetting ending"). I noticed all these things (together with other details like the "cop" and the dad both not only being voiced by Willem Dafoe but also him even losing the hair and looking like him by the 2nd library sequence), but simply couldn't fit it into a cohesive whole. So thanks and great work on digging out a context and meaning out of this.
Other painting in the house change. There’s a egg presumably representing fertility that in later loops cracks and a reptilian eye shows peeking through. The painting of the couple in the room ends up being just James looking sad with a flower in his hand.
Wait, so they meet at the party, which is Daisy's alibi. But James is there, and is also the one who DOES shoot the father? The only way I can reconcile this is that the apartment stuff isn't really happening, and that the library/therapy room is where these ideas are playing out.
So this appears to just be a slip up on Bob's part. She showed up in the city on New Years Eve, when the polaroid is taken, but Husband doesn't actually show up until a "few weeks later" according to Wife. Preceeding that line is one of my favorites though. "I was going to turn my self in, but it was a new year." You know, I shot my father, but it was a new year and a new me so
@@Siesen actually, daisy says she met james at that new years party where the polaroid on the fridge was taken. there's a line of dialogue that goes: James: Hey... Look at this. [James hands Daisy the polaroid from the fridge] Daisy: Wow, that was like eight years ago? I look so young. James: Best icebreaker I ever had. Daisy: You were so smooth. James: Smooth like butter. Daisy: You were the opposite of smooth. James: Smooth like silk. this is why i said the thing about there being so many plotholes in this game - this is one of them, because the line you're referring to goes like this: Daisy: That polaroid on the fridge was actually taken an hour after I got here. I was gonna turn myself in, but, it was a new year. Few weeks later, you showed up, and, well... this info could make sense if she's talking about a few weeks after she shot her father, but there are only 7 days between christmas eve and new years, but there you go.
@@heybimo the fact that these discrepancies are never brought up makes me think that they are in fact plot holes and not intentional. Having your story set in a dream is not a get out jail free card for not fully considering the elements of your plot. I feel like the plot would be a lot better served if the husband began to question reality and that's what lead to the breaking of the loop instead of clicking on a book then clicking on a clock.
@@bobvids According to a post in the game's Steam forum, at least one line in the above conversation was deleted in a recent patch to stop this confusion that the Husband met the Wife on the day the polaroid was taken. Buck Rogers is correct, the Husband met the Wife a few weeks after the polaroid picture was taken, so this does not contradict the fact that the Husband shot the father on the same day the polaroid was taken.
On a more serious note, the last ending lessens my dislike of this game on one side but also I absolutely hate 'it was all a dream/imagination/hallucination' stuff so while clarifying some things and technically making more sense it just gives me a sour taste in my mouth.
I think it’s a shame that so many horrible theories and head canons have used it’s all in their mind twist so much that we are no longer able to see any form of media where it's ACTUALLY a good twist.
I get the whole hallucination thing. Its like saying The Outer Wilds turned out to be in a Star Trek Holodeck all along. Its just... why should I get invested in any of this?
Maybe it feels bad cause it's realistic..?I don't know, I felt a little depressed after that ending too, especially since I spend a couple hours playing the game.
I prefer it being an in a dream thing because it was so fucking ridiculous it had to have been in a dream. So maybe instead of a twist just a natural conclusion. Weird game
I feel like this reading ascribes a purely decent motive to the Father's actions when in my opinion it's really fucked up for him to tell James to ghost a pregnant Daisy, ensuring that they blame themselves/each other for the rest of their lives, when the Father's willful deception is the sole reason that James and Daisy didn't know they're related. This nightmare is a consequence of his infidelity and abdication of parental responsibility. He clearly has no interest in fostering a healthy familial bond between his two children, or giving Daisy any agency in this situation whatsoever. For him to take the moral high road here is monstrous. EDIT: Since people are still liking this, and I have nothing better to do, I may as well expand upon this. I think this video is, as it admits, as charitable and positive an interpretation of 12 Minutes as is reasonably possible. I myself initially read the game's twist as essentially a "fuck you" to any player who got invested in the premise and had identified with James. I think it's fair to say they definitely wanted to court controversy with this game, and I'm mostly relieved that THE DISCOURSE surrounding this game has entirely vanished less than a month later. I am, however, also a little disappointed, because I think 12 Minutes is fertile ground for some truly Galaxy Brain takes. Here's mine. I wouldn't say I believe it, but it's an idea I can't shake: 12 Minutes is actually about how abusive authority figures gaslight their victims and society at large into believing that they are neutral arbiters of law and order when in fact their morally unjustifiable behavior is the cause of so much of the turmoil that they claim to be the only thing stopping. Both the metaphorical Cop and the real-world Father are hyper-violent aggressors who present themselves as "reality" asserting itself. The Cop frequently uses the phrase "this is the way things have to be" as he violently attacks you and your wife, a sentiment echoed by the Father when telling James that the only acceptable thing he can do is to abandon his pregnant partner and never tell her why. And, to really drive this parallel home, the fascist Cop and the abusive Father are THE SAME DAMN PERSON, WITH THE SAME DAMN DYNAMIC WITH THE PLAYER. The final lines of the "True Ending", where the Father tells the player "Sometimes things just are what they are. It's time for you to wake up" is not a cathartic moment. It is not a man with some very fucked up feelings being set right. It's an abusive Father successfully gaslighting his son into accepting a false choice so that the Father can continue to escape his responsibility for the situation, while being seen as an upholder of common decency and natural order. And, on the metaphorical level, it is a fascist system successfully gaslighting the people it has horrifically abused and failed utterly that it's the only thing standing between them and annihilation. 12 Minutes is a tragedy about the lies we allow to be told to us. Like I said, real Galaxy Brain shit.
Wait hold on, I thought his partner never got pregnant in reality and was all just in his head? Cuz “wife” only got pregnant after marriage, but in reality those two never even got married in the first place, they were just dating with each other and dad found out about it Edit: I rewatched play through of the game and the game never tells you whether she is pregnant in reality , so I think it is more likely that the main character is only thinking about how it would be like to get to marry his sister and living with her, eventually getting her pregnant. The dad cares about his daughter so it doesn’t make much sense to tell main character to leave her when she was having a baby, he would be much more angry with main character too otherwise. (Also his dad told MC “You do have a remarkable imagination. The stories you’ve created. But believing them so strongly, so deeply is unhealthy.”)
@@Anna-kz7km Nope, babby real. th-cam.com/video/HLCPxOdtFas/w-d-xo.html Edit: I'm assuming Daylight Office is reality and even though fighting for your right to incest gets you put back in the loop that the information your Father gives you is in fact the real situation. It is entirely possible that this is not the case and that there's only one "canon" dialogue tree, but I think that would be really stupid. But this is a game where you imagine yourself drugging your wife multiple times in order to use her as bait for an electrocution trap, so that's not exactly off the table.
people think the archetypal figure depicted as the father here is a friend, in reality this character is the most disgusting liar, thief, trickster and machiavellan narcissistic force, that exists in fiction, and reality. the thing is, he is beyond disgusting, despite the fact other forces might commit evils on a more grander scale. it’s advanced manipulation, aimed at specific goals, and always centered around his ego. the story is always the same, because this guy never changes, and people wilfully get fucked by his line of thought
I'm so glad you put the glitches in, oh my god, my partner and I didn't get ANY of that and I'm just cackling at the absurdity. One criticism I have is that it's kinda unsettling how you basically get so desperate to get answers you're forced to just watch Daisy die over and over, but also drug her. I can't decide if it's better, or at least more thought-provoking, than having the chance to tell her to hide. But I think in the end the idea is that anything you choose as James that isn't just accepting the reality and leaving get is inherently selfish and hurts her worse that disappearing. Also my favorite part of this entire experience was when my partner went to leave a review of the game (positive one cause he liked that we both got so invested in untangling the whole messy puzzle and getting the ending lol) and the first one we wrote greeted with just said "Sweet Home Alabama" and nothing else. We were CRYING laughing at that after what we went through just to beat the game lol
@Lancasterlaw1175 well it wouldn't mean abandoning the child as the child had not yet been concieved, as everything in the apartment didn't happen. Simmilary, they were not yet married and likely not that far along in the relationship as the father likely wanted to stop their relationship as quickly as possible. So yes, it would be shitty to abandon his girlfriend/sister, but it's not as bad as you're putting it. I will say though, it pissed me the fuck off that the father was just not willing to allow the brother to tell his sister why they couldn't date and that he had to just leave her, which was an act of pure selfishness.
Actually even after the "mindfulness" ending where is not continue/play option, you still can go back and manually put the hand of the clock in main menu to 2 minutes before 12. and then "contiune" option apperas.
Yes, that was put in so you can get back into the game and deliberately go back into the "dream" to pick up any of the paintings/plant achievements you didn't get.
I just realized that if this game is a commentary on fantasies and escapism, it can also be applied to gaming and how we should always come back to reality, no matter how harsh it is. As for the incest, I have no idea how it fits into that moral theory
It's not just about the incest, it's about how the main character choosing not to reveal/accept his obsession and hiding from it, the incest on the loop is just a way to represent the concequences of ignoring his obsession and trying to escape reality (sorry for any mistakes, i'm not a native english speaker)
Wait a second a whole big ass chunk of this plot is taken right from the Korean revenge thriller Oldboy, complete with the hypnosis in order to forget the horrific twist.
yeaaa. people are kind of comparing it to happy death day 2 u because of the time loop. but honestly it was more of an old boy for me (the korean one not the 2013 one) and i absolutely fucking hated the ending because of how he tried to hypnotized himself just to be with her. (not gonna spoil it but man it was really endearing)
Cool detail, in the start of the game in the hallway there are 2 pictures, one of a red flower (a dahlia) and the other picture is of the big library with the meditation book in it
When i first played this game i thought that the watch was a contraption that could make time loops or somethings... and that the "cop" wanted that in order to be in a loop with his dying daughter.
I’m pretty sure people have seen this but I can’t help but think that in the beginning exactly, the two doors can be his future. The first door where James accidentally woke up the baby could have potentially been the future of him and his wife (aka. his half-sister!) and the other door which is empty and not rented could be the future of him leaving daisy and having to accept the truth that they can’t be together.
"You have to let go", implies that the MC has a complex, an obsession over someone that, without them they feel that they cannot exist, which is why the MC is "believing all these stories so strongly". MC has to move on in order to truly find themselves, and be freed from the complex. Sister, Daughter, Mother, Father, any of those relationships (under Freud's theory of psychoanalysis and Jung's analytical psychology) are the source of that "fight in the self". All the characters represent one single psyche... I personally believe that the story is about a person that needs to let go of the loss of their child at an early age.
Thank you for improving my outlook on this game, I didn't get that final ending and was so underwhelmed. Didn't want to have to play through the whole thing again to see what the clock did
10:20 him eating the cake in peace while the wife is in absolute insanity thinking about all she's learned about is the most hilarious thing ever broo 😂 Also, 10:35 y'all see the comment at the bottom right saying "Time looping makes a man hungry" 😭😭
I really just wish this had been a cool time travel story. The ending is such a bummer and done poorly. Also random non-sequitur: You can call your own phone from the killer's phone which you would think would give you the killer's number to call in another loop and another interaction, but no. It irritated me that this wasn't accounted for but you can talk to his daughter and have to several times. And yes I know the phone you use is your wife's but again it's silly it went out of its way to give you your wife's phone but not your own or the ability to call your wife's phone instead of your own for the killer's phone number.
I think a big part of the missing "oomph" in the twist was how laughably disinterested I was in the characters. Them all being faceless blobs viewed from above really hurts player investment (in addition to the bad writing). The Forgotten City was another narrative time loop-y game that released recently, and it handled its characterization much better. Another thing Forgotten City handled surprisingly well was presenting all the dialogue options I wanted to ask characters (ie, "aren't you Romans all barbaric?"). 12 Minutes had the opposite problem, where in addition to not having the options I wanted (ie, "hey wife, can you hide in this closet with me?"), the options that were presented confused me when I didn't fully understand certain plot points yet (ie, "why did you kill your father?" - because of course I'd immediately trust that premise from the guy that broke into our apartment). I'm also wondering what's the significance of all the allusions to The Shining (like the carpet pattern). Does all work and no play make our protagonist a dull boy? With the unreliable narrator, I'm not even sure he killed anyone - just fantasized about it. The robber sharing the same voice actor as the father also seems like a deliberate choice.
yeah, in the Continue ending the father is bald and looks just like the robber, as well as Willem Dafoe only having one spot in the credits as "Father"
So...the portuguese classic book, Os Maias. The more I learn about the story, the more I think about the book because of how similar it is. The focus of the family house, the fact the character always saying is he going to "change things in Portugal" all the time with his friends but not doing anything, the twist, etc. I could probably give more examples but I read it back in high school.
I think one of the reasons 12 minutes didn't really land with most people (aside from "the twist") is that it doesn't have quite enough clues to make it clear that things aren't real. There are hints here and there, sure, especially if you're the observant sort, but most people are going to be more engaged with what's shown literally and thus seeking an explanation for the time loop, rather than assuming it's just all a dream. Also, most people probably didn't find that final ending, which makes interpretation much more difficult since most people are lacking that last piece of context. The inconsistencies with the literal narrative become a hindrance instead of a help in this regard, as without the context of the final ending, they become a distraction when trying to analyse the piece as a whole. For example, while I might be misremembering, the photo is supposed to be from New Years Eve when Husband and Wife met, but that photo should also prove that Husband couldn't have killed his father if he was at the same party. With how the story is presented throughout most of it, this just looks like a normal plot hole rather than an indication of the unreal nature of events.
I feel like if they hadn't got 3 A listers to voice act this game could've been way more fleshed out with way more paths to go down. Apart from Daisy Ridley, she's a fire voice actor.
@@jonjoshelfy1228 Less money spent in one place and that money being able to go elsewhere. Voice actors don't usually work for free nor do big names ones come cheap (except the rare few who will take less in certain circumstances).
@@tareklegrand7747 Nope didn't forget it. You can't spend money you'll maybe get in the future that you don't have now. So way too much money would have had to go towards getting bigger name VAs cuz they can't go into the future and get that extra money those VAs *might* make them to pay them during development.
Thank you, without this video i dont think i wouldve understood this game at all. I thought the game was full of plot holes, but this explanation puts them in context, and wraps the game with a cute bow on top
Just for info, to trigger the mindfulness ending it's not enough to just click on the book and then stare at the clock. The point is to focus on the clock at the moment of hitting 12 so the gong will wake him up. If you click at the book right away and then stare at the clock, you'll still get a hypnosis ending because the scene will end sooner than the clock gets to 12. So it probably doesn't have anything to do with the hypnosis itself it's just the only way how to delay time while still being able to focus on the clock. What I also find interesting is that in this last scene the ESC button will not pause the game with the menu picture of the clock but it will focus on the clock instead.
the one thing that confused me is that james & daisy met on the same day their dad was killed? like how did he know he was in love with her? how did he made it 100s of miles away to confess his love for his sister? how did he know to even ask permission from their father at all?
Is that said? If so then literally everything falls apart. It wouldn't shock me if they made that big of a fuck up but it also seems so huge I would think even they would have to have seen it.
Agreed. This very clearly isn't an actual time loop. You know it's in his head because the condition of the paintings and the plant change from one "loop" to the next. I think how or when it works is up for interpretation, but I think the game itself is either part of the therapy or him running scenarios in his head about how this "relationship" could play out, and you're supposed to realize that it wouldn't, couldn't and shouldn't work. Bugs aside (which I experienced maybe in 2-3 loops total), I think it's less that the story is incoherent and more that it's intentionally vague and up for interpretation. The only thing that is absolutely certain is that the time loop concept is just an excuse for his mind to justify his delusions until he arrives at the proper conclusion and faces the reality of his situation.
I didn't know Dahlia was his mother's name until this video 😐 which is why I was horribly confused by the twist because it's possible to go through the whole damn game without even finding out that vital piece of info
@@BazallWorks I mean when the man starts guessing names they all start with D. My very first reaction to that was what if was Dahlia? Then oh shit that's my mother's name!
But how did you get to the ending without that information? He either says it when you ask the wife about the name or when you show the baby clothes to the cop/father.
Ah so basically, James is still in that “interrogation room”. He’s just fantasying a life with the Daisy. Nothing about the cop and Daisy stuff has happened and will not happen if you choose to live a life without Daisy, get hypnotized, or be mindful. However, you can go back if you catalyst the events to shooting the father, but you’ll be always be stuck in the loop over and over again until you choose another ending. Correct me in anyway
I think personally he just murdered his father and everything else is totally made up in his mind. fact is he's had a total mental breakdown and the father isn't his father but a phycologist trying to talk to him in a way that will break him out of his delusions. So really this is just about him confronting his own daemons and accepting reality. Reminds me a little of shutter Island, very good plot twists and how insane the mind can get to protect us from pain.
The cop is the father The man is the monster The wife is bumblebee These relationships are themselves a product of the loop in the protagonists mind. Essentially the cop is avenging his own death by killing his daughter and son before his daughter gives birth to his mistress. Sound confusing? Because it is. None of the loop is real and it’s just the product of a dresser kind. The only thing real is what happens in the library.
It's nice to see something about this game that doesn't immediately lambast it in an overtly smarmy way! It's been rather frustrating feeling like I'm the only person who actually really liked this game compared to The Discourse going around online. I also came to the "Therapy" conclusion, the way Dafoe speaks during the Mindfulness ending felt different to both the way he spoke as the cop and as both instances of the Father character. One thing different I took away was that the third bezel on the clock looks more like the Sun to me. So the bottom bezel would represent the brother and the sister, the middle one represents Knowledge given that it almost looks like a third eye. And the final being the Sun, possibly representing reaching enlightenment or proper application of that Knowledge. I think with the Mindfulness ending you're being presented with a protagonist that has an unhealthy, obsessive mindset towards his sister, not even necessarily that they're in a relationship or that he got her pregnant. I think nearly everything in the apartment could be read as just another fictional situation in the protagonist's mind. And reaching that Mindfulness moment represents the MC finally letting go and moving on, but I also think that the main menu presents an additional moment. You can still go back into the loop after the Mindfulness ending by moving the minute hand back to the 58 minute mark. This represents the fact that while the protagonist has applied that knowledge and made steps to better himself; it is still a constant effort that he has to continue doing. And at any point he could slip back into that loop, into that unhealthy mindset.
Thanks for commenting this, this are exactly my thoughts on the game, it's a shame that most people just think the story is straight up bad because they don't take the time to understand it.
Someone save me, cause I still don't understand. What is the timeline of events that DID happen? 1. At christmas Daisy shoots her dad (and doesn't check later if he actually died or not?) 2. At New year's James meets "Daisy's dad" to ask for permission to date her? (who does that) Also 2? Daisy and James meet at the New year's party???? Why does he know about the pregnancy if Daisy and James just met, and clearly aren't pregnant yet? And why does the dad not have hair the second time we revisit that day? And Is the second time a complete imagination as well? Also 2 of the endings come down to the same thing right? Where he leaves Daisy, and when he stares at the clock? I may very well not remember everything mentioned correctly and maybe I am just too dumb to understand, but please someone try to make me. help
None of it happened as Bob explains in the video. They are siblings, never knew they were related and when the father finds out her daughter is pregnant, he tells his son and this is when he tries to conjure a scenario where he can stay with half-sister.
The only "real" moment is when the patient choses to let go of his obsession of a woman we, the audience, know absolutely nothing about. Everything else is inside the hypnosis of the patient. They are all, everything but the last phrases, machinations of the mind of the patient. The fascinating thing is how we perceive reality, how our minds calculate what is real, how we turn data into fact and how we refute it. This is all an exercise on PERCEPTION. It teaches us not to be adament on our beliefs. We could be wrong. We need to stay flexible and re-evaluate what we think we know. In fact, this is a brilliant masterpiece. Willem Dafoe is known for his participation in similar "mindfoks". Or I could be absolutely wrong in everything I just wrote.
I thought it was about the worries about being a new parent and all the anxiety it brings, specifically cause the creative director had twin girls during its production and felt a mediation on all the things that can go wrong, the Husband may have created
I like how in this game once the wife finds out she didn’t actually kill her father she is suddenly completely absolved of any guilt. Completely disregarding the fact that she ran away thinking she had killed her father and lived her own life for years. Also it’s a minor plothole that the father is seemingly completely fine in the flashbacks with the brother even though it’s only been 7 days since he’s been shot.
I don't like the endings because the Dad was clearly so horribly abusive. Ignoring one of his kids, hitting the other, telling one kid but NOT The other _who was carrying the baby_, getting angry and hitting the player character resulting in him getting shot. Really it felt like the loops should have ended with the father getting shot. The Husband remembering what happened that night. Afterwards? Who knows. As it stands, it feels like the Dad was allowed to get away scot free. Even be rewarded for being a terrible person who let people be seriously hurt for his own ego.
This game has a lot of flaws, but legitimately, watching Bob spend an entire game cycle on hold with an insurance company was one of the funniest things I saw in 2021.
It was a pretty good premise and I think that was where it stopped. The gameplay was average at best, it became tedious very quickly and the story wasn't anything to shout about. But I played it on the new XCloud thing so it filled a hole
Using the Unity Explorer you. A player character game object was named "Aaron" for some reason. I'm not sure if that his actual name or just placeholder name, but I'll drop it here.
What analysts seem to miss is that the library segment is also part of an imagined time loop. The reality before this whole dream inside a dream is never presented to the player. Which means that the level of symbolic abstraction of the first dream layer on top of reality is unknown. But y'all talk about it as if the first layer is basically known to reflect reality closely.
therapy theory theory: we never find out what bumblebee's deal is, what if "james" is also projecting onto the cop in his fantasies and the cops problem is what broke real world james making the entire thing imaginary and its just a guy who lost his wife or daughter to cancer and is now fabricating all of this murder mystery and time looping and such as a mental attempt not to run from the pain but to make that person's death mean something more than "she got sick it was bad luck"
I absolutly hated the "big twist", but honestly if the game wasn't so damn clever I wouldn't have liked it. It was a crazy experience and I do love this game. It's kinda sad.
You didn't mention the beggining of the game - when James walks out of elevator and goes to his flat. You can see two neighbours' flats nearby. One with very loud child, and another one empty. This is a symbol. The whole building is a symbol (look also at the paintings). James living in his imagination have two options at the end - be with his sister, be alone, or... accept the reality and move on.
Wow this was a very interesting review of the game! I got only the confession ending, and so i thought the game ended in a pretty lame way but thanks to your review now I understand a lot more about it I hope you will review other games in the future, because this video was very interesting!
just like imagine it’s like the last two episodes of evangelion and everyone is having their own truth being divulged and that’s why everyone knows nothing and everything
I think this is the most likely read of the story, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Assuming there is some Eternal Sunshine kind of thing going on and the apartment is just his mind trying to hold on to the fleeting memories of his wife as he forgets or accepts what must be, why does he initially cast her as a murderer in the fantasy? That seems to be working against the mindset that he would be trying to put himself in in the first place. Additionally, I'd expect there to be thematic linking of parallel elements to hint at this kind of ending. Elements that don't end up appearing. I'd expect there to be some kind of link between the Wife and Bumblebee -- which would be very easy, since bees are a very common, tangiable design element that would be very easy to work into the design of the character or apartment somehow.
A theory: maybe James casts Daisy as a murderer because, upon learning the truth about herself and James, Daisy decided to have an abortion rather than have a child who was the product of incest? Maybe some of this is James' attempt at creating a fantasy where he and Daisy have a happy pregnancy?
I love how Bob's brand now is just randomly coming back once or twice every one or two years to upload short, seemingly random, but still high quality videos about video games before vanishing into the ether once more.
Quality over quantity, but in cryptid packaging!
Gonna ruin it
@@sovietonion4487 no u
Another neat little thing I've found when I combed over the rest of the game is that the egg painting hanging in the kitchen slowly turns into a snake eating its own tail, an ouroboros, when James consciously chooses to put himself back into the loop even after learning the truth.
Such a cool detail that would have served better in a different game.
The painting in the living room also changes and goes through seasons - the trees turn from green and full to barren.
Ahh, so that's what it meant, I knew about the meaning of the Ouroboros, but not its context.
The painting in the bedroom also changes and the man is alone in the final painting. All of those are achievments as well
@@jackofarcades also the flowerpot in the bedroom
pretty much all pictures change.
I write them down from memory so I can both miss some or remember them wrong.
Painting with Trees:
- Two large trees with a small one in-between during spring symbolising the couple and their coming child.
- Same trees, but in winter, symbolising the darker truth behind it.
- Two separate trees in winter, symbolizing them splitting up and the child never being born
Another painting:
- Two people, woman and man, together.
- Two people, woman and man, together, with the man's shadow having the shape of a demon.
- Two people, woman and man, with the woman walking away from the man.
- Man being alone and sad, with the shadow still forming a demon.
The one where the intruder is stuck on the couch walking forever is the true ending. It's an existential meditation on the absurdity of the game.
8:21 that legit broke me.
Is like James just got so shocked by the "Yeah, cute pic, So?" that he completely forgot what he was going to say and stood there thinking "Fuck, he got me"
I think the mindfullness ending being the true ending makes even more sense when you consider that the continue ending not only resets your progress, but also starts the game up again with the same opening credits animation, creating a loop of the entire game.
I agree that them being siblings was a poor choice and they could have used a different trauma, but the core concept and what the time loop represents is handled extremely well in my eyes.
I mean, why is the siblings thing a poor choice? The fucked-up-ness of it just makes it a better plot twist for me. Shocks you more.
@@jonjoshelfy1228 I agree, people are way too sensitive and assumed that meant the creator supported incest instead of analyzing it critically within the context of the story. I thought that was a brilliantly shocking twist, and James had a completely appropriate initial reaction to figuring that out.
@@Neillan incest is a bad choice because it's not fucked up enough. It doesn't involve any pain or tragedy. it's just mildly weird, with a chance of birth defects.
@@jonjoshelfy1228It makes the whole thing seem weird and hypocritical. Basically everything that happens is the father's fault for cheating and keeping their family heritage a secret, but he entirely blames the son for what happened. So it just makes it seem like a bitter old man who hates his children revealing the fact that they're related as some kind of last cruel dig at them to ruin their relationship, since even outside the fantasy loop it does seem like they're in love.
@@MultiPerson555The thing is incest *is* enough. People who have found out that their relationship was actually incestuous have experienced trauma. The game is exploring how the revelation of something that is so societally taboo traumatizes people. Trauma doesn't have to come about from extremely fucked up shit, Idk to me that seems to be the whole point of the game! The main characters material reality is barely altered, and yet he's scarred.
From what little I know of the game outside of this video, it seems as though the intent was to have little inconsistencies in the story to hint at the fact that its not a literal sequence of events, but they were handled very poorly, and come across as accidental plotholes instead of clues.
I think this is an instance where leaving so much up to interpretations hurts the story more than it helps.
I completely agree.
Even hiding the clue to confirm all the "plot holes" behind a small interaction such as staring at a clock before your save file is deleted, a clock which you don't even know you can interact with or when to do so. That was such a poor storytelling decision.
I even thought the game really ended when the first credits rolled in.
@@coins_png ^^^this
Game also has a bunch of gameplay issues beyond the bugs. Particuarly after the first part, it becomes a massive trial and error fest, which just isnt very fun. Bit silly how vague the story is, meaning youre supposed to pay full attention and interprete stuff, but then the game can become very repetitive if you miss something.
The whole thing doesnt seem to be very well thought out. Its a cool beginning and makes for a great trailer, but after that too many flaws appear.
There's plenty more details that give away the loops are not literal but more metaphorical; first there's the plant in the bedroom, which starts fine but over the course of the game ends up losing all its leave. The same is true for the picture of the trees above the couch. Additionally in the hallway right outside the elevator, the picture on the left is a dahlia, and the picture on the right is a bunch of black lines with near the middle yet slightly off, is one red line; squinting your eyes it's easy to recognize this as being a minimalist representation of the library with the black lines all being the random uninteractive books, and the red one being the equally red book on meditation (and if clicked on in the library, gives the "forgetting ending").
I noticed all these things (together with other details like the "cop" and the dad both not only being voiced by Willem Dafoe but also him even losing the hair and looking like him by the 2nd library sequence), but simply couldn't fit it into a cohesive whole.
So thanks and great work on digging out a context and meaning out of this.
Other painting in the house change. There’s a egg presumably representing fertility that in later loops cracks and a reptilian eye shows peeking through. The painting of the couple in the room ends up being just James looking sad with a flower in his hand.
@@milkenobi It's actually not a reptillian eye, it's the Ouroboros, a symbol of a cycle that repeats itself infinitely.
You can water the plant to stop it dying.
Wait, so they meet at the party, which is Daisy's alibi. But James is there, and is also the one who DOES shoot the father?
The only way I can reconcile this is that the apartment stuff isn't really happening, and that the library/therapy room is where these ideas are playing out.
So this appears to just be a slip up on Bob's part. She showed up in the city on New Years Eve, when the polaroid is taken, but Husband doesn't actually show up until a "few weeks later" according to Wife.
Preceeding that line is one of my favorites though. "I was going to turn my self in, but it was a new year." You know, I shot my father, but it was a new year and a new me so
@@Siesen actually, daisy says she met james at that new years party where the polaroid on the fridge was taken. there's a line of dialogue that goes:
James: Hey... Look at this.
[James hands Daisy the polaroid from the fridge]
Daisy: Wow, that was like eight years ago? I look so young.
James: Best icebreaker I ever had.
Daisy: You were so smooth.
James: Smooth like butter.
Daisy: You were the opposite of smooth.
James: Smooth like silk.
this is why i said the thing about there being so many plotholes in this game - this is one of them, because the line you're referring to goes like this:
Daisy: That polaroid on the fridge was actually taken an hour after I got here. I was gonna turn myself in, but, it was a new year. Few weeks later, you showed up, and, well...
this info could make sense if she's talking about a few weeks after she shot her father, but there are only 7 days between christmas eve and new years, but there you go.
@@heybimo the fact that these discrepancies are never brought up makes me think that they are in fact plot holes and not intentional. Having your story set in a dream is not a get out jail free card for not fully considering the elements of your plot. I feel like the plot would be a lot better served if the husband began to question reality and that's what lead to the breaking of the loop instead of clicking on a book then clicking on a clock.
@@longhorneagle99 true! while i love the game that would’ve been a much better way of breaking the loop
@@bobvids According to a post in the game's Steam forum, at least one line in the above conversation was deleted in a recent patch to stop this confusion that the Husband met the Wife on the day the polaroid was taken. Buck Rogers is correct, the Husband met the Wife a few weeks after the polaroid picture was taken, so this does not contradict the fact that the Husband shot the father on the same day the polaroid was taken.
On a more serious note, the last ending lessens my dislike of this game on one side but also I absolutely hate 'it was all a dream/imagination/hallucination' stuff so while clarifying some things and technically making more sense it just gives me a sour taste in my mouth.
I think it’s a shame that so many horrible theories and head canons have used it’s all in their mind twist so much that we are no longer able to see any form of media where it's ACTUALLY a good twist.
The flower depends in my game play I watered it each loop and it Grey more
I get the whole hallucination thing. Its like saying The Outer Wilds turned out to be in a Star Trek Holodeck all along. Its just... why should I get invested in any of this?
Maybe it feels bad cause it's realistic..?I don't know, I felt a little depressed after that ending too, especially since I spend a couple hours playing the game.
I prefer it being an in a dream thing because it was so fucking ridiculous it had to have been in a dream. So maybe instead of a twist just a natural conclusion. Weird game
I feel like this reading ascribes a purely decent motive to the Father's actions when in my opinion it's really fucked up for him to tell James to ghost a pregnant Daisy, ensuring that they blame themselves/each other for the rest of their lives, when the Father's willful deception is the sole reason that James and Daisy didn't know they're related. This nightmare is a consequence of his infidelity and abdication of parental responsibility. He clearly has no interest in fostering a healthy familial bond between his two children, or giving Daisy any agency in this situation whatsoever. For him to take the moral high road here is monstrous.
EDIT:
Since people are still liking this, and I have nothing better to do, I may as well expand upon this. I think this video is, as it admits, as charitable and positive an interpretation of 12 Minutes as is reasonably possible. I myself initially read the game's twist as essentially a "fuck you" to any player who got invested in the premise and had identified with James. I think it's fair to say they definitely wanted to court controversy with this game, and I'm mostly relieved that THE DISCOURSE surrounding this game has entirely vanished less than a month later. I am, however, also a little disappointed, because I think 12 Minutes is fertile ground for some truly Galaxy Brain takes. Here's mine. I wouldn't say I believe it, but it's an idea I can't shake:
12 Minutes is actually about how abusive authority figures gaslight their victims and society at large into believing that they are neutral arbiters of law and order when in fact their morally unjustifiable behavior is the cause of so much of the turmoil that they claim to be the only thing stopping. Both the metaphorical Cop and the real-world Father are hyper-violent aggressors who present themselves as "reality" asserting itself. The Cop frequently uses the phrase "this is the way things have to be" as he violently attacks you and your wife, a sentiment echoed by the Father when telling James that the only acceptable thing he can do is to abandon his pregnant partner and never tell her why. And, to really drive this parallel home, the fascist Cop and the abusive Father are THE SAME DAMN PERSON, WITH THE SAME DAMN DYNAMIC WITH THE PLAYER. The final lines of the "True Ending", where the Father tells the player "Sometimes things just are what they are. It's time for you to wake up" is not a cathartic moment. It is not a man with some very fucked up feelings being set right. It's an abusive Father successfully gaslighting his son into accepting a false choice so that the Father can continue to escape his responsibility for the situation, while being seen as an upholder of common decency and natural order. And, on the metaphorical level, it is a fascist system successfully gaslighting the people it has horrifically abused and failed utterly that it's the only thing standing between them and annihilation. 12 Minutes is a tragedy about the lies we allow to be told to us.
Like I said, real Galaxy Brain shit.
They were definitely better off without dads intervention.
Literally what I thought. What type of father gets mad at their wife for giving their child more attention?
Wait hold on, I thought his partner never got pregnant in reality and was all just in his head? Cuz “wife” only got pregnant after marriage, but in reality those two never even got married in the first place, they were just dating with each other and dad found out about it
Edit: I rewatched play through of the game and the game never tells you whether she is pregnant in reality , so I think it is more likely that the main character is only thinking about how it would be like to get to marry his sister and living with her, eventually getting her pregnant. The dad cares about his daughter so it doesn’t make much sense to tell main character to leave her when she was having a baby, he would be much more angry with main character too otherwise. (Also his dad told MC “You do have a remarkable imagination. The stories you’ve created. But believing them so strongly, so deeply is unhealthy.”)
@@Anna-kz7km Nope, babby real. th-cam.com/video/HLCPxOdtFas/w-d-xo.html
Edit: I'm assuming Daylight Office is reality and even though fighting for your right to incest gets you put back in the loop that the information your Father gives you is in fact the real situation. It is entirely possible that this is not the case and that there's only one "canon" dialogue tree, but I think that would be really stupid. But this is a game where you imagine yourself drugging your wife multiple times in order to use her as bait for an electrocution trap, so that's not exactly off the table.
people think the archetypal figure depicted as the father here is a friend, in reality this character is the most disgusting liar, thief, trickster and machiavellan narcissistic force, that exists in fiction, and reality. the thing is, he is beyond disgusting, despite the fact other forces might commit evils on a more grander scale. it’s advanced manipulation, aimed at specific goals, and always centered around his ego. the story is always the same, because this guy never changes, and people wilfully get fucked by his line of thought
I'm so glad you put the glitches in, oh my god, my partner and I didn't get ANY of that and I'm just cackling at the absurdity.
One criticism I have is that it's kinda unsettling how you basically get so desperate to get answers you're forced to just watch Daisy die over and over, but also drug her. I can't decide if it's better, or at least more thought-provoking, than having the chance to tell her to hide. But I think in the end the idea is that anything you choose as James that isn't just accepting the reality and leaving get is inherently selfish and hurts her worse that disappearing.
Also my favorite part of this entire experience was when my partner went to leave a review of the game (positive one cause he liked that we both got so invested in untangling the whole messy puzzle and getting the ending lol) and the first one we wrote greeted with just said "Sweet Home Alabama" and nothing else. We were CRYING laughing at that after what we went through just to beat the game lol
Even with that generous reading of the ending I don't think it was worth sitting through all the required torture porn to get there.
I missed so much because the game was like "give up the relationship" and I was like, yeah, of course.
Exactly 😂 why do you have to 'choose incest' to progress the game, like what
I mean, that would also mean ditching your wife and child without giving any reason which is clearly morally wrong imo
@Lancasterlaw1175 well it wouldn't mean abandoning the child as the child had not yet been concieved, as everything in the apartment didn't happen. Simmilary, they were not yet married and likely not that far along in the relationship as the father likely wanted to stop their relationship as quickly as possible. So yes, it would be shitty to abandon his girlfriend/sister, but it's not as bad as you're putting it. I will say though, it pissed me the fuck off that the father was just not willing to allow the brother to tell his sister why they couldn't date and that he had to just leave her, which was an act of pure selfishness.
Actually even after the "mindfulness" ending where is not continue/play option, you still can go back and manually put the hand of the clock in main menu to 2 minutes before 12. and then "contiune" option apperas.
Yes, that was put in so you can get back into the game and deliberately go back into the "dream" to pick up any of the paintings/plant achievements you didn't get.
godDAMN that was a quick turnaround. You're an editing BEAST, Bob!!!
James just wants his pudding, that's the official end
I just realized that if this game is a commentary on fantasies and escapism, it can also be applied to gaming and how we should always come back to reality, no matter how harsh it is. As for the incest, I have no idea how it fits into that moral theory
It's not just about the incest, it's about how the main character choosing not to reveal/accept his obsession and hiding from it, the incest on the loop is just a way to represent the concequences of ignoring his obsession and trying to escape reality (sorry for any mistakes, i'm not a native english speaker)
Its the harsh reality
Wait a second a whole big ass chunk of this plot is taken right from the Korean revenge thriller Oldboy, complete with the hypnosis in order to forget the horrific twist.
yeaaa. people are kind of comparing it to happy death day 2 u because of the time loop. but honestly it was more of an old boy for me (the korean one not the 2013 one) and i absolutely fucking hated the ending because of how he tried to hypnotized himself just to be with her. (not gonna spoil it but man it was really endearing)
Cool detail, in the start of the game in the hallway there are 2 pictures, one of a red flower (a dahlia) and the other picture is of the big library with the meditation book in it
congrats on managing to get this video out so quickly and also for finding a way to make it exactly 12 minutes lol
What if Old Boy didn't have the cool hallway fight?
When i first played this game i thought that the watch was a contraption that could make time loops or somethings... and that the "cop" wanted that in order to be in a loop with his dying daughter.
1:00 James: [weasel sounds] WAAAGGHHHHH
I’m pretty sure people have seen this but I can’t help but think that in the beginning exactly, the two doors can be his future. The first door where James accidentally woke up the baby could have potentially been the future of him and his wife (aka. his half-sister!) and the other door which is empty and not rented could be the future of him leaving daisy and having to accept the truth that they can’t be together.
didn't noticed that, that's so clever
"You have to let go", implies that the MC has a complex, an obsession over someone that, without them they feel that they cannot exist, which is why the MC is "believing all these stories so strongly". MC has to move on in order to truly find themselves, and be freed from the complex. Sister, Daughter, Mother, Father, any of those relationships (under Freud's theory of psychoanalysis and Jung's analytical psychology) are the source of that "fight in the self". All the characters represent one single psyche... I personally believe that the story is about a person that needs to let go of the loss of their child at an early age.
Thank you for improving my outlook on this game, I didn't get that final ending and was so underwhelmed. Didn't want to have to play through the whole thing again to see what the clock did
10:20 him eating the cake in peace while the wife is in absolute insanity thinking about all she's learned about is the most hilarious thing ever broo 😂
Also, 10:35 y'all see the comment at the bottom right saying "Time looping makes a man hungry" 😭😭
This is the best breakdown ive hesrd. Especially with th3 breakdown of how the three endings work and go hand in hand
I really just wish this had been a cool time travel story. The ending is such a bummer and done poorly.
Also random non-sequitur: You can call your own phone from the killer's phone which you would think would give you the killer's number to call in another loop and another interaction, but no. It irritated me that this wasn't accounted for but you can talk to his daughter and have to several times.
And yes I know the phone you use is your wife's but again it's silly it went out of its way to give you your wife's phone but not your own or the ability to call your wife's phone instead of your own for the killer's phone number.
I think a big part of the missing "oomph" in the twist was how laughably disinterested I was in the characters. Them all being faceless blobs viewed from above really hurts player investment (in addition to the bad writing). The Forgotten City was another narrative time loop-y game that released recently, and it handled its characterization much better.
Another thing Forgotten City handled surprisingly well was presenting all the dialogue options I wanted to ask characters (ie, "aren't you Romans all barbaric?"). 12 Minutes had the opposite problem, where in addition to not having the options I wanted (ie, "hey wife, can you hide in this closet with me?"), the options that were presented confused me when I didn't fully understand certain plot points yet (ie, "why did you kill your father?" - because of course I'd immediately trust that premise from the guy that broke into our apartment).
I'm also wondering what's the significance of all the allusions to The Shining (like the carpet pattern). Does all work and no play make our protagonist a dull boy? With the unreliable narrator, I'm not even sure he killed anyone - just fantasized about it. The robber sharing the same voice actor as the father also seems like a deliberate choice.
yeah, in the Continue ending the father is bald and looks just like the robber, as well as Willem Dafoe only having one spot in the credits as "Father"
I thought this was going to be explaining 12 minutes, as in, it was going to be explaining the concept of 12 intervals of 60 seconds
12 Minutes in Alabama
So...the portuguese classic book, Os Maias.
The more I learn about the story, the more I think about the book because of how similar it is. The focus of the family house, the fact the character always saying is he going to "change things in Portugal" all the time with his friends but not doing anything, the twist, etc.
I could probably give more examples but I read it back in high school.
James: Look at this picture!
Cop: yeah, cute pic. So?
James: ...uhhh........
wheres daph
I think one of the reasons 12 minutes didn't really land with most people (aside from "the twist") is that it doesn't have quite enough clues to make it clear that things aren't real. There are hints here and there, sure, especially if you're the observant sort, but most people are going to be more engaged with what's shown literally and thus seeking an explanation for the time loop, rather than assuming it's just all a dream. Also, most people probably didn't find that final ending, which makes interpretation much more difficult since most people are lacking that last piece of context.
The inconsistencies with the literal narrative become a hindrance instead of a help in this regard, as without the context of the final ending, they become a distraction when trying to analyse the piece as a whole. For example, while I might be misremembering, the photo is supposed to be from New Years Eve when Husband and Wife met, but that photo should also prove that Husband couldn't have killed his father if he was at the same party. With how the story is presented throughout most of it, this just looks like a normal plot hole rather than an indication of the unreal nature of events.
I feel like if they hadn't got 3 A listers to voice act this game could've been way more fleshed out with way more paths to go down.
Apart from Daisy Ridley, she's a fire voice actor.
What difference does it make
@@jonjoshelfy1228 Less money spent in one place and that money being able to go elsewhere. Voice actors don't usually work for free nor do big names ones come cheap (except the rare few who will take less in certain circumstances).
@@moonlitxangel5771one detail you forgot is big names sells
@@tareklegrand7747 Nope didn't forget it. You can't spend money you'll maybe get in the future that you don't have now. So way too much money would have had to go towards getting bigger name VAs cuz they can't go into the future and get that extra money those VAs *might* make them to pay them during development.
@@moonlitxangel5771 they HAD the money...
Thank you, without this video i dont think i wouldve understood this game at all. I thought the game was full of plot holes, but this explanation puts them in context, and wraps the game with a cute bow on top
Just for info, to trigger the mindfulness ending it's not enough to just click on the book and then stare at the clock. The point is to focus on the clock at the moment of hitting 12 so the gong will wake him up. If you click at the book right away and then stare at the clock, you'll still get a hypnosis ending because the scene will end sooner than the clock gets to 12. So it probably doesn't have anything to do with the hypnosis itself it's just the only way how to delay time while still being able to focus on the clock. What I also find interesting is that in this last scene the ESC button will not pause the game with the menu picture of the clock but it will focus on the clock instead.
I see a new member of a growing genre of video games about familicide whos protagonist is named James.
the one thing that confused me is that james & daisy met on the same day their dad was killed? like how did he know he was in love with her? how did he made it 100s of miles away to confess his love for his sister? how did he know to even ask permission from their father at all?
Is that said? If so then literally everything falls apart. It wouldn't shock me if they made that big of a fuck up but it also seems so huge I would think even they would have to have seen it.
Well apparently you're right. What the fuck? That's one of the largest plot holes I've ever heard of in any story.
Agreed. This very clearly isn't an actual time loop. You know it's in his head because the condition of the paintings and the plant change from one "loop" to the next. I think how or when it works is up for interpretation, but I think the game itself is either part of the therapy or him running scenarios in his head about how this "relationship" could play out, and you're supposed to realize that it wouldn't, couldn't and shouldn't work. Bugs aside (which I experienced maybe in 2-3 loops total), I think it's less that the story is incoherent and more that it's intentionally vague and up for interpretation. The only thing that is absolutely certain is that the time loop concept is just an excuse for his mind to justify his delusions until he arrives at the proper conclusion and faces the reality of his situation.
I didn't know Dahlia was his mother's name until this video 😐 which is why I was horribly confused by the twist because it's possible to go through the whole damn game without even finding out that vital piece of info
Really? I thought it was pretty simple. Like not easy but once you have all the peices easy enough to figure out.
@@lurosun not if they literally don't tell you
@@BazallWorks I mean when the man starts guessing names they all start with D. My very first reaction to that was what if was Dahlia? Then oh shit that's my mother's name!
But how did you get to the ending without that information? He either says it when you ask the wife about the name or when you show the baby clothes to the cop/father.
@@SpeckObst I don't remember my whole thought process. I just worked it out.
*SIR?*
*sir*
*Sir!*
Gives me big
*jason*
*Jason?*
*J A S O N*
Energy
SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUN
Ah so basically, James is still in that “interrogation room”. He’s just fantasying a life with the Daisy. Nothing about the cop and Daisy stuff has happened and will not happen if you choose to live a life without Daisy, get hypnotized, or be mindful. However, you can go back if you catalyst the events to shooting the father, but you’ll be always be stuck in the loop over and over again until you choose another ending. Correct me in anyway
The Father was already shot and killed.
I think personally he just murdered his father and everything else is totally made up in his mind. fact is he's had a total mental breakdown and the father isn't his father but a phycologist trying to talk to him in a way that will break him out of his delusions.
So really this is just about him confronting his own daemons and accepting reality.
Reminds me a little of shutter Island, very good plot twists and how insane the mind can get to protect us from pain.
Your ability to get this out so fast is awe inspiring
Bob I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your channel
The cop is the father
The man is the monster
The wife is bumblebee
These relationships are themselves a product of the loop in the protagonists mind.
Essentially the cop is avenging his own death by killing his daughter and son before his daughter gives birth to his mistress.
Sound confusing? Because it is. None of the loop is real and it’s just the product of a dresser kind. The only thing real is what happens in the library.
It's nice to see something about this game that doesn't immediately lambast it in an overtly smarmy way! It's been rather frustrating feeling like I'm the only person who actually really liked this game compared to The Discourse going around online.
I also came to the "Therapy" conclusion, the way Dafoe speaks during the Mindfulness ending felt different to both the way he spoke as the cop and as both instances of the Father character. One thing different I took away was that the third bezel on the clock looks more like the Sun to me. So the bottom bezel would represent the brother and the sister, the middle one represents Knowledge given that it almost looks like a third eye. And the final being the Sun, possibly representing reaching enlightenment or proper application of that Knowledge.
I think with the Mindfulness ending you're being presented with a protagonist that has an unhealthy, obsessive mindset towards his sister, not even necessarily that they're in a relationship or that he got her pregnant. I think nearly everything in the apartment could be read as just another fictional situation in the protagonist's mind. And reaching that Mindfulness moment represents the MC finally letting go and moving on, but I also think that the main menu presents an additional moment. You can still go back into the loop after the Mindfulness ending by moving the minute hand back to the 58 minute mark. This represents the fact that while the protagonist has applied that knowledge and made steps to better himself; it is still a constant effort that he has to continue doing. And at any point he could slip back into that loop, into that unhealthy mindset.
Thanks for commenting this, this are exactly my thoughts on the game, it's a shame that most people just think the story is straight up bad because they don't take the time to understand it.
You can rewind the clock two minutes on the main menu after the mindfulness ending and continue reappears.
Someone save me, cause I still don't understand.
What is the timeline of events that DID happen?
1. At christmas Daisy shoots her dad (and doesn't check later if he actually died or not?)
2. At New year's James meets "Daisy's dad" to ask for permission to date her? (who does that)
Also 2? Daisy and James meet at the New year's party????
Why does he know about the pregnancy if Daisy and James just met, and clearly aren't pregnant yet? And why does the dad not have hair the second time we revisit that day? And Is the second time a complete imagination as well?
Also 2 of the endings come down to the same thing right? Where he leaves Daisy, and when he stares at the clock?
I may very well not remember everything mentioned correctly and maybe I am just too dumb to understand, but please someone try to make me.
help
None of it happened as Bob explains in the video. They are siblings, never knew they were related and when the father finds out her daughter is pregnant, he tells his son and this is when he tries to conjure a scenario where he can stay with half-sister.
Nobody's gonna save your ass
The only "real" moment is when the patient choses to let go of his obsession of a woman we, the audience, know absolutely nothing about. Everything else is inside the hypnosis of the patient. They are all, everything but the last phrases, machinations of the mind of the patient.
The fascinating thing is how we perceive reality, how our minds calculate what is real, how we turn data into fact and how we refute it. This is all an exercise on PERCEPTION.
It teaches us not to be adament on our beliefs. We could be wrong. We need to stay flexible and re-evaluate what we think we know.
In fact, this is a brilliant masterpiece. Willem Dafoe is known for his participation in similar "mindfoks".
Or I could be absolutely wrong in everything I just wrote.
Sir is gonna be the new SHAWN!!!!
I appreciate every video you upload Bob, always good stuff
Sir? Sir? SIR. sir?
I thought it was about the worries about being a new parent and all the anxiety it brings, specifically cause the creative director had twin girls during its production and felt a mediation on all the things that can go wrong, the Husband may have created
7:52 but you can move the clock's hand backwards and the option to continue appears
This game is a psycho simulator. I killed the wife then ate the dessert 😂
thanks for the explanation man, really appreciate your theory
first hehe
"Sir?"
I haven't laughed this hard from a plot twist since signs
Holy shit somebody else did honestly the playthrough of this game was worth it just for that moment
"No! I'm on the line! Noooo!" lmao
I'm confused if the cop is actually our dad. Has the same voice actor but the cursor over the character says 'father'
No, the cop isn’t the dad. But he does have the same voice actor on purpose (I think).
I like how in this game once the wife finds out she didn’t actually kill her father she is suddenly completely absolved of any guilt. Completely disregarding the fact that she ran away thinking she had killed her father and lived her own life for years.
Also it’s a minor plothole that the father is seemingly completely fine in the flashbacks with the brother even though it’s only been 7 days since he’s been shot.
It's because neither of these things happened, they're both rationalisations in James's head
I don't like the endings because the Dad was clearly so horribly abusive. Ignoring one of his kids, hitting the other, telling one kid but NOT The other _who was carrying the baby_, getting angry and hitting the player character resulting in him getting shot.
Really it felt like the loops should have ended with the father getting shot. The Husband remembering what happened that night. Afterwards? Who knows.
As it stands, it feels like the Dad was allowed to get away scot free. Even be rewarded for being a terrible person who let people be seriously hurt for his own ego.
Good to see you back
9:30 WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL I WAS LITERALLY THINKING THE SAME AFTER GETTING THIS ENDING
I literally bought the game so I could watch this video
This game has a lot of flaws, but legitimately, watching Bob spend an entire game cycle on hold with an insurance company was one of the funniest things I saw in 2021.
Award for World's Worst Wife Guy goes to:
thanks for this explanation, was straight to the point and helpful, appreciate it! subbed
I watched one of his videos and now I'm on a 13 hour rabbit hole
Thank you for making this video with detailed explanation :)
Fun fact: The Continue option shows up if you set the menu clock time to 11:58
It was a pretty good premise and I think that was where it stopped. The gameplay was average at best, it became tedious very quickly and the story wasn't anything to shout about. But I played it on the new XCloud thing so it filled a hole
Expecting you to explain 12 minutes in 12 minutes and im not disappointed
Legend say the cop is still walking on the corner of the sofa to this day.
Please make more content, I've missed you
Using the Unity Explorer you. A player character game object was named "Aaron" for some reason.
I'm not sure if that his actual name or just placeholder name, but I'll drop it here.
What analysts seem to miss is that the library segment is also part of an imagined time loop.
The reality before this whole dream inside a dream is never presented to the player.
Which means that the level of symbolic abstraction of the first dream layer on top of reality is unknown.
But y'all talk about it as if the first layer is basically known to reflect reality closely.
Thanks for explaining the last ending there because I was confused but too disinterested to try to fine the answer on my own tbh
12 Minutes? More like 12 Mincest!
Sometimes you find these games by accident and discover some hidden gems
This was super convenient. I got to watch a video by bob while also getting caught up to date about this video game that currently trending.
Bob! So glad to see you! How’ve you been?
Making this only 12min was great. I saw another video with 27 min and i said no way
But that video is more than double the amount of views than this has
@@varinyampandey7111 #Notmyview
Sweet home Alabama~
I love how he made this video exactly 12 minutes
Mine says 12:01 😭😭
therapy theory theory:
we never find out what bumblebee's deal is, what if "james" is also projecting onto the cop in his fantasies and the cops problem is what broke real world james making the entire thing imaginary and its just a guy who lost his wife or daughter to cancer and is now fabricating all of this murder mystery and time looping and such as a mental attempt not to run from the pain but to make that person's death mean something more than "she got sick it was bad luck"
BABE WAKE UP NEW BOBVIDS DROPPED
9/10 great game. Loved it
Most people seem to disagree, unfortunately
God bless us Bob, and come home more often.
I absolutly hated the "big twist", but honestly if the game wasn't so damn clever I wouldn't have liked it. It was a crazy experience and I do love this game. It's kinda sad.
You didn't mention the beggining of the game - when James walks out of elevator and goes to his flat. You can see two neighbours' flats nearby. One with very loud child, and another one empty. This is a symbol. The whole building is a symbol (look also at the paintings). James living in his imagination have two options at the end - be with his sister, be alone, or... accept the reality and move on.
4:01 wait what, i had no idea you could do this
Wow this was a very interesting review of the game! I got only the confession ending, and so i thought the game ended in a pretty lame way but thanks to your review now I understand a lot more about it
I hope you will review other games in the future, because this video was very interesting!
just like imagine it’s like the last two episodes of evangelion and everyone is having their own truth being divulged and that’s why everyone knows nothing and everything
Great explanation! you're a legend :)
I think this is the most likely read of the story, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Assuming there is some Eternal Sunshine kind of thing going on and the apartment is just his mind trying to hold on to the fleeting memories of his wife as he forgets or accepts what must be, why does he initially cast her as a murderer in the fantasy? That seems to be working against the mindset that he would be trying to put himself in in the first place.
Additionally, I'd expect there to be thematic linking of parallel elements to hint at this kind of ending. Elements that don't end up appearing. I'd expect there to be some kind of link between the Wife and Bumblebee -- which would be very easy, since bees are a very common, tangiable design element that would be very easy to work into the design of the character or apartment somehow.
A theory: maybe James casts Daisy as a murderer because, upon learning the truth about herself and James, Daisy decided to have an abortion rather than have a child who was the product of incest? Maybe some of this is James' attempt at creating a fantasy where he and Daisy have a happy pregnancy?
This video and its comments really helped me to understand what was going on. Thank you all!