Credit: Unsplash

Time flies when you’re having fun.

Do you ever stop and think about every individual action you take every minute of every day? Of course you don’t; that’d be ridiculous. But the thing about time is that you can accomplish a lot in a very short span when you’ve got a good plan of action.

Case in point, certain video game stories may take you, the player, tens of hours to get all the way through, but in-universe, only a single day passes. Narrative time compression is a fun and interesting way to convey the progression and scale of a story, even if it’s not 1:1 with your actual experience.

Batman: Arkham Asylum – The Bat Works Fast

Credit: Rocksteady Studios/Warner Bros. Interactive

By the time of the original Batman: Arkham game, Bruce Wayne is already a good few years into his career as the Caped Crusader. He’s got his whole rogues’ gallery, the police know and trust him, and he’s pretty much got his entire crime-fighting procedure down to a science. This is probably how he was able to systematically disassemble the Joker’s entire plan in that game in the span of one night.

Judging by the sky in the opening cutscene, it’s already nightfall when Batman is carting Joker into Arkham Asylum, which implies he bagged him pretty early in the evening. Right from there, it’s nonstop predator missions and villain encounters until the showdown with Joker before the sun comes up.

Conker’s Bad Fur Day – History’s Most Inconvenient Hangover

Credit: Rare

According to Conker’s narration in the opening of Conker’s Bad Fur Day, all the events leading up to him being crowned the world’s grumpiest king transpired the day before. This was the titular “Bad Fur Day,” starting from the early morning when Conker wakes up at the bottom of a waterfall with a severe hangover and only gets worse.

In the span of this single, hectic day, Conker fights a gigantic robotic haystack, runs around a cave system made of excrement, gets turned into a vampire bat, fights an entire war, and still has time for a dual Matrix and Alien parody before the sun comes up again. And to think, all he wanted that entire time was to go home and pass out.

Devil May Cry 3 – Slaying In The Morning, Slaying In The Evening

Credit: Capcom

Judging by what we’ve seen of him in his various appearances, Dante seems to play his demon hunting trade primarily at night. Whether this is because demons prefer the dark or Dante himself is just a night owl isn’t clear. It’s possible that his first major job in Devil May Cry 3 may have been a contributor to his nightly lifestyle, however.

While it’s a bit difficult to discern the time of day due to all the ash and rubble the emergence of Temen Ni Gru kicked into the sky, it is at least a full-on night roughly midway through Dante’s rampage through the tower. We can also see the sunlight in the sky once he leaves the tower with Lady. Hopefully, once Dante starts charging for his services, his clients will pay for speedy work.

Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach – When They Say Closed, They Mean It

Credit: Steel Wool Studios/ScottGames

While most of the Five Nights at Freddy’s games take place over multiple days, Security Breach only encompasses a single evening-to-morning stretch. In this case, even considering Gregory’s reduced mobility due to all the hostile animatronics, it makes sense that a single (albeit large) entertainment complex could be navigated in the span of one night.

The entire reason Gregory has to sneak around is that the Pizzaplex’s automated systems lock the main exits after hours, so he literally can’t leave until the building reopens for the human staff first thing in the morning. That’s probably why they only bother with a single security officer after-hours; only the most hardcore night owls would take such a job.

Luigi’s Mansion – Luigi Is Bad At Scheduling

Credit: Nintendo

So, let’s piece this one together: Luigi got a piece of junk mail that said he won a free mansion in a contest he didn’t enter. He calls up Mario, tells him to meet him there, and then walks all the way there himself. Did he gauge the distance from his current home? Or check the weather, for that matter, considering the apparent thunderstorm going on? Luigi is really bad at scheduling things.

He arrives at “his” mansion in the apparent dead of night, with nothing on his person but a flashlight. He then gets roped into a ghost-hunting fiasco that lasts until dawn. If he had done the sensible thing and left earlier in the day or the following day (or better yet, know an obvious scam when he sees one), he and Mario could’ve avoided this entire nasty mess.

Psychonauts – A Packed Day At Camp

Credit: Double Fine

A kid’s perception of time at summer camp often depends on whether or not they actually want to be at said camp. Kids who love summer camp will often feel like time is flying by, while kids who hate summer camp feel every second passes as though it were an eternity. In Psychonauts, Raz definitely wants to be at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, which is probably why the whole day seems to pass so quickly.

Technically, we’re cheating a teensy bit here because Raz arrives at the camp at night, sleeps until the morning, and then goes on to have his day-long adventure in the camp, in people’s minds, and at Thorny Towers. It’s also a little difficult to discern how much time actually passes while he’s in peoples’ minds, but the point is that this story doesn’t end until the following morning.

Um Jammer Lammy – A Whole Album In 15 Minutes

Credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Um Jammer Lammy is an especially interesting case among all the hyper-compressed stories on this list. This game’s story doesn’t just take place over a single day but rather over the course of just 15 minutes. Presumably, Milk Can’s first major gig was scheduled for the afternoon, but Lammy still managed to wake up for the day just 15 minutes beforehand.

In her mad rush to get to the venue, Lammy gets roped into a series of apparently very short events, including firefighting, caring for babies, flying an airplane, carving an entire wooden guitar from scratch, and getting sent back in time (or going to Hell, depending on your game region) and playing an entirely different show before she finally shows up for the gig.

Resident Evil 7 – Family Visits Always Seem Longer Than They Are

Credit: Capcom

What is it with people going to explore spooky locales right before it gets dark out? Are we the weird ones here, thinking that if you have to explore a place that’s crawling with ghoulies, you should at least leave in the morning? Well, Ethan Winters didn’t have that good sense because, in Resident Evil 7, he enters the Baker estate right as the sun begins to set.

By the time Jack knocks Ethan out, and he comes to, it’s already pitch black outside, with the Baker family sitting down to “dinner.” It takes Ethan the entire night to navigate the family’s traps and attacks before he finally has a showdown with the mutated Eveline just as the sun is coming up.

Deltarune Chapter 1 – Running On Magic School Bus Rules

Credit: Toby Fox

It’s more or less a rule of most shows and stories set in or near schools that students are entirely capable of having an entire adventure in the span of one school day. In the first chapter of Deltarune, Kris and Susie leave their classroom to get chalk from the closet right at the beginning of the school day, fall into the Dark World and don’t return to their world until school has already been over for a while.

The precise nature of the Dark World and its effects on the real world is still unclear, but at the very least, the flow of time there seems relatively similar to that of the real world. This logic also seems to flow on into Chapter 2 of Deltarune, where Kris and Susie can pay a brief visit to the Dark World right after class ends, and not much time seems to have passed when they return.