Hey Ozzy! I'm one of the devs of the Sexy Brutale and I just wanted to say thanks for including the game in this video! I've been binging your vids the last week and finally watched this one. It was a fun, unexpected surprise to see it pop up. Love your work! (found you through the raging loop one and going back through older ones now)

9:09 "Start the loop, grab the mugs, drug your wife, hit the switch, hide in the closet and wait for the hitman" We've all had them days

I don't care how bad you are, there is no way you lose a fight when you have an unending time loop to practice and retry it

oh my god how he just sits eating cake while his wife is sitting in the couch crying thats so fucking funny

“oops, incest” is not the hard-hitting plot twist the devs thought it was

-12 minute analysis -look inside -32 minutes

This video basically amounts to "Don't ruin a good story by saying it was all a dream", because when the whole story is revealed to be a dream, it makes the player feel like they completely wasted their time engaging with it.

Forgot 12 minutes was a game and thought this was a series called "12 minute analysis" which looped a couple times talking about games with time loops

I love that this plot hinges on you finding out your wife might’ve murdered her dad and your immediate response isn’t “oh hey! I also murdered my dad! Twinsies!”

A heartbreaking story about a father forced to murder and steal to save his daughter's life. About a couple who hold a terrifying secret that puts their life on the line. No, actually, it was all a daydream and yeah, also, incest.

I'm literally keeling over in laughter from the protagonist's zany antics. "Babe? Babe? Babe?" *eats cake for 5 minutes* "Sir? Sir? Sir?" As a dramatic tragedy this game sucks ass, but as a black comedy this game is sister-lickin' good!

Oh my god I accidentally restarted the video and watched it for 5 whole minutes thinking you were doing a self-aware time loop bit before realizing I set it back💀

The fact that literally all the game had to do was end it in the “we find your brother and we move foward” and it would have had a decent ending 😭😭😭

I feel like the arguments in the video arent really talking about problems with timeloop games its more of that 12 minutes is terribly designed and has a disappointing ending

The calling the cops thing is funny, imagine if you could order pizza and they showed up in ten minutes

*wife is having a breakdown* "Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe?" I'm fucking loosing it, help

I hated this game because it felt like halfway through they stopped caring about a game and started caring more about “how do we get more people talking about this game? I know! Let’s just fill it with controversy”!

the sexy brutale was so good, but man I wish it finished and actually included had what it feels like it builds up to all game - solving every single murder in one loop. Such a missed opportunity

One slightly interesting thing about this game, when considering the main details about the story, is that it actually holds quite a few parallels to a Portuguese novel by the name of "Os Maias", which is not only a very important book in our modern Literature, but it also holds a story of incestuous occurrences, to put it lightly. The reason why it's fun to point out is because the game's developer and writer, Luís António, is himself Portuguese; as such he would be privy to such a story, making the parallels go from pure coincidence to possible inspiration. no time loops in the book tho

That cake must have been really good. Ive never had a slice last longer than a minute.

I still don't understand why so many games refuses to do the majora's maks approach. Everytime I see a timeloop game they tried REALLY hard to be as far away as Majora, for some reason

The only problem with the time loop here is no fast forward/skip button. The majority of the actual issues comes down to plain ole bad storytelling.

Really like the analysis, and I will also recommend: Slay the Princess is a really cool branching pathways horror game that came out this year. It has amazing visual style, good delivery of story, and most of all: time loops!

im watching this right now and if the character youre playing is the brother im ending my life.

Part of the annoyance of 12 Minutes is that the game offer no shortcuts, meaning you will have to wait around for a long time just to do one specific thing late in the loop. Other time loop games like Outer Wilds and The Forgotten City offer mechanics that allow you to skip the repeating sections after you have done it once. In Outer Wilds most location has a hidden shortcut you can find by exploring the area. In the Forgotten City, my beloved Galerius can take care of most errands for you once you have did them in previous loop.

I'd be surprised if time loops work less well in games than other media, given repetition is such a key part of many game genres (e.g. roguelikes). Hell, I could see time loops being introduced to games as narrative justification for pre-existing gameplay.

As someone who spent 8 hours grinding away at this game trying to figure out what the heck to do, then folding and looking up the solutions, this video was a 1000 times more entertaining than the game.

12 minutes is one of those games that, when I realised what the twist was; I closed the game and never touched it again. It is the one regarding the main couple. I despise those type of twists and have as of yet found one that works.

The moral of the story is “Don’t be a good person and try to grow better than the person you were when you made the worst mistake of your life, just forget and move on!”

This is the worst game I ever completed. I felt absolutely betrayed and disgusted by that ending that acted like it was saying something deep while robbing any semblance of meaning to be found within it

I love how during the intense heartnwarking scenes with the hit man you are just doing the most random shit, hiding in the closet, eating noodles

This game just feels like another episode of "The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish"

The problem I find with time loop games is that they never give the player a chance to just, "do it right eventually". Characters in these games often find themselves repeating the exact same failures over and over. Like, how about don't? Ideally, a time travel loop game should let the player grind to perfect optimisation by doing things right eventually. Failure should not be random, but forced. For instance in Life is Strange, Max can shatter I think it was a snowglobe by reaching up to it. Then the devs added insult to injury, because if you rewind and then reach for it again, it shatters again and Max has a new line implying it'll never work and she should stop trying. It's arbitrary, it's an accident, it shouldn't just happen again, yet it always will. An example in this game is stabbing the invader. That should work, eventually. And there'd be no reason not to do it. Let the guy die, cool, now you have to restart anyway, you don't get more information with his death and it probably freaks your sister wife out enough for her to leave.

_"Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe? Babe?"_ this video is so good lol

What a waste of wilem Dafoes talent, his performance is pretty good though.

I also really, really love time loop stories and video games. It's really unfortunate that a lot of the few ones we have are so... bad at exploring the time loop part. And mostly in the same ways, too - 12 Minutes and In Stars And Time have some similar problems, for instance, though the latter is _infinitely_ more enjoyable thanks to having actual characters. With dialogue you want to read. Anyways, it seems to me that the biggest temptation for developers making a time loop game always winds up being the same. To prevent players from just skipping to the "final" loop right away, progress winds up gated off behind non-time-gated in-loop events. Key A isn't findable in the drawer unless you pick up photo B, which the character refuses to do unless they've heard line C from NPC D, and even then the door is mysteriously jammed until you've also picked up totally unrelated item E... or even worse, the character just refuses to interact with the key in the drawer until they've already reached the door in a later loop and had to reset back. Clearly such protagonists need to play more adventure games. But there's literally no reason to do that. The only thing the dev needs to do is design the puzzles such that either the player needs to have successfully played enough previous loops to find out what they need to advance... or that they use a guide. Which ultimately is the same thing, as far as the game is concerned. Sure, require the player to have the key to open the door, but there's no need for them to wait for another character to mention there might be something behind the door in order to have the key actually appear. Even the best example we probably have of diagetic save/load systems, Undertale, gates off the last chunk of True Pacifist behind seeing the neutral ending at least once beforehand. Though at least it gives a good in-universe reason for it to happen.

I would definitely love to hear your perspective on how higurashi and umineko handle time loops in comparison to 12 minutes and other media.

There is a callousness to this game that I don’t think is necessarily intrinsic to time-loop games

I love how In Stars and Time deals with the potential issues with time loop games. First of all, the repetitiveness is important to the story. By repeating the same events over and over again, you’re going through what the character is experiencing, and a big part of the story is examining how the time loop is affecting the main character and their mental state. Second, there are ways to skip forward and loop back, but there are mechanical and story reasons why you may choose to play through everything in full even if it’s repetitive and tedious. You really feel like you’re experiencing the time loop with the character in a way that doesn’t feel pointlessly frustrating.

0:42 Lobotomy corporation is one of those timeloop games and uses it to contextualise the story and Gameplay loop

Outer Wilds is an example of a game that does the time loop concept PERFECTLY without any of the drawbacks in this game scenario. I love it.

is anyone gonna forget that at the start of this game the wife thought that she killed the grandad? and how the mc forgot that he killed the grandad? how could you forget that you didn’t kill someone?

Seems like no one mentioned "Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective," which is _PEAK_ time loop game design.

the first thought I have when I see this video is, "wait a second, this video is longer than 12 minutes?"

It could be possible for a game to use a New Game+ as a time-loop. Like, if you're on your second or third playthrough the game progresses mostly normally until about halfway through, when suddenly you're character breaks down and confesses to all the other characters that they've lived through this all before. From there on the plot is heavily altered due to the character knowing what's going to happen. Could be interesting?

This channel is a hidden gem.

12 minutes really is a game that seems shocking for the sake of it. like for the whole hitman arc your justification is surviving the hitmans attack and saving your wife yet the way you progress is to hide in a closet and watch her get murdered and then to drug her. the whole kid having cancer plotpoint only to exists to humanise someone willing to comit murder for money when it simply could have been the revenge plot on its own. and the incest twist is just... if you're going to have it why did you make the woman pregnant? all that said the father murder scene weirdly works cause the whole issue was that the father isolated his children from eachother, the boy was called a monster and when the father hears of this delicate situation instead of calmly explaining things and sitting both kids down and admit his fault in never introducing them two as family he assaults his own son while the sister doesn't even get any punishment adding more to the whole monster thing. the boy at that moment was being assaulted and retaliated, if he were to get arrested it would most likely count as self defence. and yet it is still framed as him being the bad guy for doing something gross when he repressed a traumatic beating. and then the plot twist which is just... so the dude fantasised about murdering his father then? having a kid with his sister? the guy started out as sympathetic from the shitty situation he was put in but the events of the game just make him completely unlikable, which is a problem because you have to play as him. plot twists that the player is actually a terrible person can work, and bad guy player characters can work too, but they need to be endearing and this guy, his one redeeming trait of being tragic is revoked by the true ending.

It's an old video and this has been said before, but In Stars And Time is such a good timeloop game. SPOILERS, PRETTY BIG ONES: Sure, it's a timeloop game but eventually you manage to escape it. What the game moreso focuses on is less the actual timeloop and more on how your character feels. It captures Siffrin's anguish and self-loathing so well, I could write an essay on it.

When I clicked on the video, I was concerned that it was gonna be calling ALL time loop games bad. Including gems such as Outer Wilds. Ngl, so relieved that didn't end up being the case.

I think the game style can really affect the quality of a time loop game, like games that naturally have high replayability are a sort of iterative loop in themselves, just the player is the iterator not the character. So a game like a visual novel has an easier time doing this than most formats as many already have the tools to basically travel the loop built in I think one thing that could make one of these games interesting would be a means of discussing and processing a time loop between loops (or at least the important parts). That way you and your character are forced to process what you’re doing to people in your attempts to try and stop the loop, and thus you don’t end up playing quite an irredeemable monster.

The problem with Time Loop Games is that we need more of them

I thought this game was pretty bad when I played it, but wow watching this video really drives home how terrible it is. Another thing that's so hilariously bad about the game is the voice acting, which is terrible, even though they hired big time, very talented film actors-- James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley and Willem Dafoe for the cast. I imagine that must have been the majority of the games budget. Not blaming the actors either, they were working with terrible dialogue and probably got little to no direction from the game makers who were misguided enough to think throwing money at big actors would fill the void of competent writing.

Does anyone else find it weird that the father becomes bald and has William Dafoe's voice... *the same voice as the cop's??* I also would've loved to hear a bit more about time loops in general, but this has amazing production quality. The thumbnail reminds me of Deathloop. My biggest gripe with time loop games is that most of their endings fall flat after really good buildup. Quantum Break (SPOILER) gives you two branching narratives that lead to one ending. However, you don't even get the catharsis that it was only an illusion of choice. It's simply a let down.

Sir? Sir? Sir? Sir? Sir? Sir? Sir? (this is a great video, well argued and well presented) Sir? Sir? Sir? Sir? Sir? Sir?

How does Palm Springs not even get a mention? Easily one of the best time loop movies that actually touches on some of the horrors (and advantages) of living in a time loop. And there's no contrived exit from the loop of learning to love or solving a mystery.

Thanks for explaining the causal loop vs iterative loop thing; ive always noticed this but never known the words for this. Beyond strictly time loop stories, anything with time travel is one of the two (like harry Potter vs back to the future). The latter is definitely easier to write but i think it also is popular outside of the mystery genre because it plays into the idea of a multiverse, which is all the rage these days.

Man am I glad someone is giving props to Time Crimes and Sexy Brutale. 2 semi-hidden gems that practically perfect the time loop on their respective mediums.

Can confirm, Sexy Brutale is a freakin' banger of a game.

I feel like, fundamentally, the concept of a time loop is fascinating. Just look at how INCREDIBLE outer wilds is, y'know? It's just that the loop in 12 minutes, uh. Sucks ass.

At one point in the “flashback” the father alludes to the sister being pregnant, so I think that sequence is also a dream, or something?

My favorite thing about this game watching Xqc's chat spam "Sir" over and over for like an hour

just here to recommend In Stars and Time as a perfect time loop game. it uses the time loop not just as a narrative device, not just as a setting, but as a genuine element of the story interwoven with the others, and playing through each loop gets faster and faster as you go through each one. there is still tedium but it's intentional. I don't wanna say any more to avoid spoilers but. 10/10 time loop game. a must play.

killed his dad and marries his sister and finds it all out in one fated encounter.. ok oedipus

24:40 Bro really went: fuck lets just copy OMORIs plot twist (but 10 times worse)

My favorite example of a causal loop in video games might have to be Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time. It's been about a decade since I played it, but IIRC the story goes that the big bad's village was destroyed when he was a kid, and the cause was a burst of magic high in the sky. So as an adult he spent his time amassing wealth and power to build a tower to that elevation to figure out/prevent the disaster. However, by building his tower and using the power of the crystal to manipulate time, he became the cause of the disaster.

Came here to say, there’s a really good timeloop game atm called in stars and time! It deals with time loops really well with how it deals with repetition and makes you feel how the main character feels! Especially with how you can feel how frustrated the character get as well as know the script by heart (note that you can skip dialogue, and get even stronger than your party in your future loops, as well as spacing out in a conversation) so you can speed through the game like how the main character feels after each loop, when you do things like not go to a key component of knowledge where the party finds a spell that no one knows where only the mc knows, when you teach this important spell to one of your main friends early on and go to this information spot later in a much farther level, they will be suspicious of how you knew of such a spell before going to the library.. I will say, this game is more focused on the mc’s mental struggles of dealing with the time loops as well as internal struggles, there is no weird or bad plot twist that breaks the immersion of the story, it is a heartfelt journey through and through and deals with you and your parties relationships! (No weird drama btw! So no love triangles that break immersion!) In short, It’s a time loop game, while a simple rpg game with your party to fight the final boss, is quite good at conveying emotions and struggles as well as change.. it’s really good to get into it without spoilers at all

okay, wow, i just watched this whole video without realising it somehow only had 2k views. this is super well-made, the commentary is great and it absolutely earned a sub from me. i heard a little about 12 minutes and why it wasn't exactly great but nothing could have prepared me for the things i learned about it in this video. that plot is... certainly something.

I did the right thing when I stopped with cop trying to find the brother ending, it's not good but it's so much better

Somehow I feel like the ‘kindergarten’ duology was really good at doing it, with the only changes between each ‘day’ being the items you earn by learning what to do thru previous attempts

Dear Spellbook, The Perfect Run, Re:Zero- there are so many modern examples of a well executed story that takes advantage of repetition rather than making it a chore, and they take more inspiration from a incestuous Portuguese novel that wasn't particularly well acclaimed. Great.

Im in LOVE WITH THE CONCEPT OF TIME LOOPS I DONT KNOW WHY BUT IM JUST EXTREMELY IN LOVE WITH THEM i recently have been watching a 15 episode series called "reset" and i have been eating up that series REAL GOOD

I was considering _12 minutes_ because _Outer Wilds_ was so good. Honest to goodness, I am so glad I saw this first. I'd have been _pissed_ if I'd played that game on the couch with my partner and kid. On the other hand, we just started _Sexy Brutale_ a few days ago, and I agree, it's great!

Interestingly, I think there are lots of games that narratively utilise timeloops, but not mechanically. And even more ironically, I have a couple of them in mind, but dropping names is basically spoilers. So I guess they do rely on time loops for shocking and powerful plot resolutions. And it can also work as a way to fluently tie the end of one playthrough with the beginning of the next one or NewGame+. But gameplay-wise, it is rather a niche.

Only 17.5k subscribers? Woah. You could've fooled me. The editing, pacing, and research in this video had me thinking you were in the millions of followers. Please keep going. I don't know a lot about a lot but I know this platform and it's extremely rare I find someone this talented with such a small following....... Heck or at all

All modern games use time loops. It's called the save and load functions. Morrowind handled this really well with a god recognizing the hopelessness of fighting you. Haven't played it but heard undertale handles it well too.

I recommend Ghost Trick Phantom Detective! Its not quite a conventional timeloop in the Groundhog Day-esque sense, but it does see you reliving moments to change events. A little trial-and-error but the puzzles are fun, its well paced, and its REALLY funny. It was headed by the main director on the original Ace Attorney games, so if you like the humor in AA it'll def be for you (although its a little more ridiculous than AA). Seriously, I wish I could relive those plot twists...

Speaking of stories with timeloops, Surviving Romance starts as one, though it progresses when our protagonist tries to get close to people. It's a manhwa, and I think of it as like Re-Zero meets Crazy Ex Girlfriend.

Can't believe this is a dead channel. The video quality is insane, this is a very good video essay, and even though I don't often watch video essays, I enjoyed it a lot.

If you think about it, a save state is a time loop in itself.

In Stars And Time is a lovely time-loop game anyone with an interest in the genera should play. It's very character-focused, but it has so many quality-of-life features for its gameplay mechanics that that alone is worthy of praise. (Though to be clear, it's *very* well written, too.)

really appreciate you putting the song names in the description! it's one of those things that i wish every youtube did

Can only heartily sign the "Go Sexy Brutale" message. Back when I played it I occasionally stream to a group of friends and I couldn't put it down but was so *mad* that I couldn't stream it to them fresh by the time I'd finished it offline.

I think youll love in stars in time, Another GREAT timeloop game

Interesting detail. The carpet outside the door when his wife leaves is the carpet from the Overlook hotel in The Shining.

@Ozzy II I HIGHLY recommend checking out the "12 monkeys" TV show as well as "Dark". 12 Monkeys has some very intricately planned and consistent time travel (though it does have a few moments where they decide to get campy for fun) and is overall a genuinely well-made time travel show, and is massively underrated/unknown. Dark is similar in it's consistency/planning, but a lot more serious and, well, dark. Both feature time loops and consistent time travel, and if you're as big of a fan of the concept as I am, then you absolutely should watch both shows.

Great video, but I think the title and premise are a little bit off relative to the actual content. You didn't really discuss The Problem with time loop games, you made a (fantastic) 32 minute critique of 12 minutes, occasionally comparing it to other media with time loops that do the same concept, but better. I would personally have titled the video something along the lines of "12 minutes is garbage, and here's why". Still, tho, really nice! Great production quality, solid pacing and presentation, nice breakdown of the issues with the game. You deserve a lot more than 30 views and 156 subscribers.

I remember watching the GTLive for 12 Minutes and at some point, MatPat gives up on finding the endings. Eventually, as they look through the walkthroughs, they go absolutely insane. "YOU READ HIM A BOOK?!"

How ironic that KZfaq recommended this video again, not showing that I already watched it, and I didn't remember I watched it already until a certain point. For a second I thought I was in a timeloop

This seems less like "The Problem with Time Loop Games" and more like "The Problem with Games that Suddenly Have Shitty Writing."

29:39 why does the father suddenly hit the yoinky sploinky with his legs?

oh I get why he fumbles every single attempt at attacking the hitman now. It's because it's "all a dream" and you can't throw a punch in a dream.

Neither this video nor any of the comments here even remotely understand what this game is about. The game is a depiction of a psychoanalytic session. The "police/father" is a therapist trying to get the hero to move on from his fixation of a woman that is slowly destroying him. He resists his therapist by imagining him to a tyrannical father or killer policeman forcing him to abandon his "woman." The "incest plot twist" is just the protagonist's brain trying to justify his inability to make his imaginary relationship real. The final "true ending" is him finally recognizing this and moving beyond.

You did not just call majoras mask “that one zelda game” 😭

Seems strange to (correctly) give this game shit for flinching at the last second, while also recommending The Sexy Brutale, which also (spoilers!) flinches at the last second.

If you like The Sexy Brutale you should really try out Ghost Trick! It's a really fun puzzle mystery game with a super interesting story. And it utilizes time loops really well.

Jessie Gender’s video essay on this game is one of my favorite video essays I’ve ever seen

"Oops I accidentally my own sister" OR "It was all in le head" My god, we're in a 'worst ending' competition and they made 2 entries at once! I was almost expecting the triple-threat with a boss fight that's just QTEs. Fun fact, you could keep asking your sister-wife about the book for the quote, or, keeping in line with the theme of this game, you could kill her with the kitchen knife, take the book from her body, and read it aloud while she dies. This also works to unlock the alternate ending. In case this game didn't have enough 'bullying wife' content. Also, while a more minor point, having the father and hitman use the same distinctive voice actor is a really weird and dumb choice. You have like 4 characters with lines, you really can't just have someone else voice the dad? It's so confusing because it makes them seem related somehow. And the last thing this story needs is more people being related...

Imagine you're having a dramatic, deeply personal conversation with a man who is accusing you of murdering your father. You're trying desperately to convince him you didn't, fighting for your life to not end up his victim, and while this is happening your husband without saying anything just picks up a spoon and walks into the closet for the entirety of the conversation.

I'm shocked to see this video only having 800 or so views. It's a very good analysis with high production values.

32 minutes and 0 oldboy jokes... you are the true hero the society needs