"12 minutes" is played from a top-down perspective of an apartment suite shared by a man and his wife, including the main living and kitchen area, their bedroom, and bathroom. the player controls the husband during these events, where he is free to do various actions. without taking certain actions, over the course of the 12 minutes, the man learns his wife is pregnant, but a police officer arrives at the apartment, accuses the wife of murdering his father several years ago, and in trying to arrest her, knocks out the husband and attacks and kills the wife and her unborn child. the game then restarts at the original point, at which point the player can now try to take actions to learn the wife is a suspect, how to prevent her arrest, or other actions as to find a "best" result over the next 12 minutes, otherwise they restart the 12 minutes over. however, the player is not given any exact information of what this goal is, leaving it up to them to explore how to resolve the situation. the man is the only character that retains knowledge of the previous cycles, such as knowing about the impending arrest, and this information can be used to perform other actions in future cycles. this gameplay loop has been compared to "". while the main loop lasts only 12 minutes in real time, the game is expected to take a player between 6 and 8 hours to complete.