I first spotted Time Flies during Day of the Devs last year, where it caught my attention with its 1-bit style and unique hook. A short game (in both the literal and figurative sense) as you take control of a mayfly. You only have limited time to complete your bucket list, as you will quite literally die based on the country you’re playing in. Time Flies is one of those comedic games that occasionally even makes you reflect on life itself, if only for a few seconds.

Time Flies starts out with perhaps the most poignant question for the player. Where are you based? Using data from the WHO, you can select your country from a list where it shows your expected lifespan. For example, I played from the Netherlands, where the average lifespan is 81 years (certainly less challenging than Mozambique with its average 57.7 years of expected lifespan), which translates to about 81 seconds of playtime. In these 81 seconds you have a short list of things to achieve. More often than not you’ll need to direct your mayfly to interact with objects in the level. Traveling the world? Well that means obviously to walk around on a spinning globe. Leaving your mark? Walking on top of a doormat will certainly do that. Are most of these objectives an excuse for puns? Yes and they’re good puns at that.

As a mayfly you really can’t do much more than flying in a direction. Whenever you approach an object, time stands still for a while and you can try to move it or make something happen. Occasionally you may get caught in a drop of water, a flickering flame or even a turned on lightbulb, which spells the end for your mayfly. Thankfully you can immediately start again and possibly learn from your mistakes. I loved the little touches that your previous mayfly is still shown in the world as a little dot. It makes the four levels feel that little bit more cohesive.

While there aren’t that many levels, the trick is in figuring out the optimal way to navigate the world. Especially when there’s little tricks and secrets to be found that I don’t want to spoil here. Occasionally Time Flies feels like a small speedrunning game. There’s no reward for finishing the game faster, but you’re nearly always on the clock. Once you figure out the individual objectives for your bucket list, the real goal is to tie them all together and finish them all in a single lifespan. It makes for a delightful little adventure that had me chuckling numerous times. It’s also a great game for someone else to watch alongside the player. It almost makes me wish that the game supported multiplayer as it touches on similar elements as something like Untitled Goose Game. Free in its flow, and malleable in its structure depending on who’s playing it.

The game also has a few replayable elements, such as secret puzzle pieces and a list of achievements. It feels like such a tightly woven package that there is very little to complain about aside from wanting there to be more levels. But frankly I think that with four stages the game doesn’t overstay its welcome. It doesn’t need an endless mode, much like a mayfly it just might be aware of when its time is up. And when that final task was scratched off my bucket list, it felt rewarding in its own right.

If you like short and comedic games then Time Flies comes highly recommended. You’ll have seen most of what the game has to offer in a few hours, but it has a high “Wait, I need you to play this game for five minutes”-factor that makes it a lot of fun to show to friends and family. It is rare that a game is so sharply tuned that I can be satisfied with having fewer levels to play through. Time Flies is such an easy recommendation to just about anyone who plays games. Your time with it may be short, but it is certainly well spent.