You’re probably familiar with the concept of the bucket list: a collection of goals, dreams, and aspirations that you would like to accomplish within your lifetime. But what if you only had a meagre handful of hours to fit everything into? What would a housefly’s bucket list look like?
This is the absurdist, almost Cronenbergian premise of Michael Frei and Raphaël Munoz’s new game, Time Flies. “The fly is so meaningless, so annoying,” says Frei. “To try and find meaning with such a small thing in this world – there’s poetry in that.”
Planned for release in 2023 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and PC, the game stood out at the indie-focused Day of the Devs showcase this summer thanks to its gently macabre humour and striking, monochromatic pixel-art visuals. Time Flies riffs on the open-world design principle of letting the player complete tasks in any order they like. However, befitting the limited existence of a housefly, there is no untouched wilderness to explore or glinting horizon to quest towards – just an ordinary house filled with everyday objects and a giant sleeping man.
Development began in July 2021, when Covid-19 lockdowns still loomed large. The feeling of “being stuck in a house” certainly fed into the game, says Frei – as did a preoccupation with death. At the start of each game, the player must select their location, which then determines how much time they have to complete the bucket list. Selecting United Kingdom, for example, gives players 81.4 seconds, because the WHO estimates the average life expectancy (of humans) there at 81.4 years.
The game isn’t a heavy meditation on the fleetingness of existence. After all, you’re a housefly intent on experiencing joy. The bucket list is filled with tasks such as “learn an instrument”, “get rich”, “look great”, and “go on tour”. Each of these tasks take the form of a delightfully interactive visual gag: going on tour involves landing on a record player, hitting the on switch, and riding dizzyingly on the vinyl as old-timey music wafts from the speakers. Looking great has you guiding the fly behind a pair of reading glasses and strutting like a catwalk model.
Frei’s previous work, which straddles both traditional video games and animation, is imbued with similar visual inventiveness. 2019’s Kids filled the screen with hundreds of beautifully animated on-screen characters, whom the player directed in wobbling unison. While the protagonist is little more than a single black pixel in Time Flies, it’s still a treat to control, evoking the paper aeroplanes of Frei’s beloved 1994 Macintosh classic Glider. As a 10-year-old, Frei snapped the floppy disk to that game in half, not because he hated it but because he loved it too much. “I became frustrated that I was so committed. Nothing else in life gave me any joy,” he says. “Of course I immediately regretted breaking the floppy disk”
There’s a good chance youngsters and grownups alike will find themselves similarly taken by Time Flies. With the ticking clock in the top left-hand corner, it’s as much about strategy – the best order to complete the bucket list within the allotted time – as big existential questions. The beauty of the game is that it’s guided by the simplest, most life-affirming and universal of principles: “Make the best of the time you have.”
Time Flies will be out in 2023 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and PC.
