Hello! My name is Michael Frei. I worked on Time Flies, a game where you play as a fly coming July 31st to PlayStation 5! It’s a game you may have seen first revealed on the PlayStation Blog a few years ago, and now it’s finally almost here.
Before you start playing as a fly, we check where the game is played from.
Country selection screen
If you are from Switzerland, your average life expectancy according to the World Health Organization is 83.3 years. In the game, we convert the years to 83.3 seconds (you are a fly after all). The goal is to complete your bucket list before you die. Because life expectancy in the United States is 76.4 years, you get 76.4 seconds when you play from the USA.
Taking off as a fly
This means that the game will be harder in some places than in others.
A bucket list
But what to do in this world before you die? That is a difficult question to answer. Luckily, the game contains a list of things for you to do. All you need to do is figure out how to do them, and then do them all within one lifetime. It might seem impossible at first, but you can die trying, and eventually you’ll get the hang of it. It is a game about life, but you get many chances.
The challenge of making Time Flies was coming up with things a fly can do. My personal favourite is the “Find God” bucket list item. Here are the steps we went through to design it – without spoilers though, so you can go and Find God yourself!
Early rough sketch of a game controller with a fly on the directional pad
Step 1: Getting ideas
Ok, so you’ve played a million video games. But have you ever played a video game as a fly in a video game? As in, a video game … within a video game? And wouldn’t it be even more meta if you could Find God within that video game? The first idea was a platformer game in which you have to escape hell and reach heaven. But that idea had some issues.
Mockup of a platformer game within the game
Step 2: Understanding limitations
The problem was that you could only trigger one button at a time when playing as a fly. In Time Flies, all your actions are triggered with flight stick controls. You only physically interact with the world by bouncing off, landing or walking on things. There are no trigger buttons or key combos you can use. You can only interact with buttons and trigger buttons by landing on them and walking over them.
Screenshot of the final game in the game
Step 3: Doing it right
The solution was to build a very simple game that only relies on three virtual inputs: the left-right directional pad and a trigger button to start the game. You don’t need to reach for the heavens to Find God – all you need to do is look both ways and head in the right direction (which could be left). And if that is too simple for you, don’t worry: there might be another game hidden in Time Flies! Not only a video game you play as a fly in a video game, but a video game you play as a fly in a video game you play as a fly! It makes sense, we promise.
We hope you have fun gaming as a fly in Time Flies when it comes to PS5 on July 31! 🖤
