- Puzzle, Simulator, Adventure, Indie
This whimsical game is part open world and part flight simulator – and you play it as a fly! You are provided with a bucket list that you can complete before you die. But the life of a fly is short – and the list is long!
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Character
Contemporary, contemplative, raw and formally daring.
- contemporarynostalgic
- contemplativerelentless
- rawmeticulous
- classical in formformally daring
- resolvedopen-ended
Who loves it, who doesn't
1 profiled raters. Loved most by The Genre Devotees.
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A yes-or-no question, answered from what people wrote here, on TMDB and on Wikipedia. Never made up.
Reviews
- theo.thrillsThe Genre Devotee★★★★
Solid, and in places better than solid. It feels completely of this moment. The ending refuses to settle, in the best way.
From the critics
A few lines from each review; the whole review is on the critic's site. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
MonsterVineVeerender JubbalAug 20255/5Time Flies is a profoundly poignant game, allows you to look within yourself and especially with factors that are at play for each person, to hammer down that sonder, if you still have yet to obtain that sense of clarity, or if that sliver of reflection needs to continue growing. Being able to mix gameplay hilarity with the looming death that is ever approaching in this stylistically hand-drawn black and white world fascinates me. Just because you are as tiny as a fly in this game, does not mean your impact on its world is also tiny.
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Loot Level ChillLyle PendleJul 20259.5/10Time Flies may seem like a silly distraction at first, but its heartfelt message and compelling speed-running gameplay make it a masterpiece.
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NintendoWorldReportWillem HilhorstJul 20259/10It 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.
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WayTooManyGamesLeonardo FariaJul 20253.5/10Visually speaking, it’s dull. When it comes to its sound department, there isn’t one – all you’re going to hear is annoying flies buzzing around. The gameplay is as shallow as a puddle, and whether or not this was meant to be comedic or philosophical, it has failed either way. I wasn’t laughing or thinking about the futility of a small amount of time spent alive, even if this was supposed to be one of its (smuggish) intentions – I was just beyond bored.
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Metro GameCentralNick GillettJul 20257/10A short, surreal roguelike puzzler that proves a video game doesn’t have to be 60 hours long or feature photorealistic graphics to be entertaining and thought-provoking.
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Snippets via OpenCritic, where 73% of critics recommend it.
About the game
- Platforms
- PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Mac, Nintendo Switch
- Developer
- Michael Frei, Raphaël Munoz
- Publisher
- Playables, Panic
- Released
- July 31, 2025
- Modes
- Single player
- Perspective
- Bird view / Isometric
- Engine
- Unity
- Time to beat
- 2 h main story
IGDB rating 6.3/10 from 7 ratings.
Screenshots
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