In a way, Twelve Minutes is a synthesis of these two almost diametrically opposed approaches. “Rockstar goes for the explosion,” he explains, “and Jonathan has that explosion but it’s got to be meaningful. It was, he said, a markedly different philosophy to that of his previous employer. Antonio refers fondly to Blow’s principle of “no-noise,” everywhere in the final game from the literally quiet sound design to minimalist puzzles and clean art direction. Blow agreed and they overhauled the game’s look, development rolling on for another three and a half years. When he arrived, the game was meant to be entering the final six months of development but Antonio thought its realistic visuals jarred with the sleek puzzles.
So Antonio made the move to the more collaborative realm of independent games, landing an art job on Jonathan Blow's first-person puzzle game, The Witness. “It also clarified aspects of game production that aren’t ideal, like the separation between designers and programmers. “You're making games for profit,” he said matter-of-factly. For Antonio, the company offered a valuable lesson in the pitfalls of commercial development. I loved that.”Īfter Rockstar, he did a stint at Ubisoft Quebec which, like many other Ubisoft studios, has found itself having to answer tough questions about bullying and abusive behavior. “Until the games worked the way they wanted them to work, we weren’t done. “Rockstar has a very clear vision of their cinematic approach to video games, and they don't compromise on that,” Antonio told me. The company’s tough approach, both creatively and in terms of work culture, left a big impression on the young artist. But its gameplay continued to focus on extreme “stealth executions,” rendered in uncanny, hard-nosed style.
TWELVE MINUTES MOVIE
The first project he was involved with, Manhunt 2, ditched the snuff movie set-up of the first game for a bleak city romp starring the amnesiac protagonist, Daniel Lamb. Having completed a design degree in Lisbon in the mid-aughts, the closest Antonio could find to a video game course in Portugal at the time, he applied to work at the newly formed Rockstar London. If the game seduces with sharp, cinematic production values, its story and action pushes into stranger, darker territory than even its home-invasion premise suggests.ĭespite its top-down perspective and point-and-click-style system of interaction, Rockstar’s cinema-but-games DNA courses through Twelve Minutes. Its cast includes popular Hollywood talent, with James McAvoy and Daisy Ridley starring as the husband and wife, Willem Dafoe as the police officer.
TWELVE MINUTES SERIES
The maddening spiral can only be broken by completing a series of logic puzzles to uncover information about the characters, their motivations, and relationships with one another. Its set-up is simple: A husband and wife’s idyllic night at home is violently interrupted by a cop, and you, playing as the husband, are stuck inside this very space and the game’s twelve minute loop.
TWELVE MINUTES PC
“They were like, 'no, no, it's too complicated.' But the idea never left my head.”įast forward to 2021 and Twelve Minutes is now a harrowing, Nolan-esque interactive thriller, released a few weeks ago for PC and Xbox consoles. “I knew we had the tech so I was like, ‘what if we do a full-blown city simulation?’ We’d write what every single person does, and then put the player into that environment as well as a time loop.
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