Even five years after its promising premiere at PAX East in 2015, we still can’t wait to get our hands on 12 Minutes. The premise behind this inventive indie game is simple, you are a man stuck in a 12-minute time loop, trying desperately to prevent the death of your pregnant wife. But, in the middle of dinner, a police officer arrives and accuses your wife of murdering his father. Your wife dies during the ensuing struggle and no matter how many times you relive the scenario, the situation always ends in tragedy. The concept is strong, but so is its all-star cast: James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe. We talked to Dafoe and 12 Minutes’ director Luis Antonio about how this little indie game got such an impressive cast and how the narrative evolved throughout development.
To start, can you set up the game a bit. Where did the original idea come from?
Antonio: My goal was to explore the concept of accumulated knowledge. How would it be if, in a game, you have this information that keeps accumulating. I realized the most interesting aspect is actually not only the factual things of knowing key codes and how to access someone's computer, but the knowledge that people have about each other. It became more of an intimate story about relationships and uncovering things that you know about other people, and how you as a player deal with that information, since the game itself never tells you what to do. It’s all set in an apartment. There's the husband and the wife, then there's the intruder who comes in and disrupts the evening. From that moment on is the unraveling of the stories of these three characters and seeing the layering as you as you go through each loop, learning more about them and their dynamics.
How did you get involved, Willem?
Dafoe: Basically, Luis pitched the game to me. I've done some work on games and I like doing voice work. I like many things, but voice work is very special because it's very freeing and often you're joining a project that someone has been with for a long time, and they've really developed it. In the case of Luis, he walks you through what he wants to see and then you basically use all you have at your disposal, using your voice, to help him see that. It's kind of a call and response game between the director and the actor that I enjoyed. Just practically, you're calling for different situations, so you have to have some flexibility. Sometimes you're working psychologically, sometimes you're working purely sonically, and sometimes you're responding to things that he needs to accomplish in the game. It's a very immediate and very loose kind of collaboration. And I enjoyed it.
You mentioned that you’ve done other games. Beyond: Two Souls is probably your highest profile release. What keeps you coming back to games? Is there something about them that intrigues you or scratches an acting itch you don't get elsewhere?
Dafoe: I don't know that I keep on coming back to it. I do lots of stuff, but you know, when someone comes to you with a passion project that has an interesting aspect as far as its structure and how they're approaching it, you get inspired by that and you try to help them realize it. I also got to say, the time loop stuff is a little bit of a mind bender, that doesn't quite tickle me, but I do like the idea that the more knowledge you get, the more you realize what you don't know. Also, there's something basic to the game that when Luis talks about accumulated knowledge, if you're awake, and if you're really playing the game in a full-blown way, it's interesting to see that it's reflective on your behavior and your way of thinking.
What was it like working with David Cage? Was it different?
Dafoe: A lot of people respond to that game. I mean, of course it was different, and the difference was that [for 12 Minutes] we were basically recording wild, and also the fact that this is a top shot, and it's quite a bit different how it's rendered. With David Cage, we were doing mocap stuff, so we were generating material for the computer people to build the characters. Here we were basically working with our voice, and we aren't doing it to picture. While we're doing the physical stuff, so you have the breath and the exertion and the emotional quality, you aren't actually performing it. With Beyond: Two Souls, we were performing everything in mocap.
How would you describe this character that you're playing in 12 Minutes? What makes this character tick?
Dafoe: You know, I don't know. I play situations. He's an intruder. That's what he's called. Some of his story is revealed, and depending on how the player plays the game, he's a different person.
Antonio: It's tricky to reply to that question without spoiling a lot of the story.
[Dafoe laughs]
Okay, sure. So is that all you want to tease for now? Play the game and find out?
Dafoe: Well, I think I said more than that.
Antonio: No, no, no, no, that was a very elegant answer. But it's very true. Because it’s a lot about learning about these characters and their motivations, so asking their motivation is kind of ...
Okay, we can move on. Did the character change or evolve through development or once Willem got on board?
Antonio: It definitely changed. Like, until I met Willem and he voiced the character, I never saw the character. As Willem said at the start, the characters were tools to tell a narrative, but once there was a voice behind it, and some problems have to be solved when two actors are interacting, and they're bouncing off each other, I think that's when the character came to life. Until then, I never saw them, really.
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