Nightflies 2

Flies, butterflies, and many other insects seem to be attracted by the bright light of street lamps, which is why most of them are constantly surrounded by swarms of insects night after night. However, if given the chance, the same insects can do the same with any other light source, such as a computer monitor, or a porch light.

Nightflies 2 is a physics-based puzzle game in which your main goal is to help the fireflies get to the lanterns, by removing any obstacles that might prevent them from doing so. To keep things fun and amusing, you must use beetles to carry the objects away in flight, which is a lot trickier than it sounds, even if you do not have to manually control the bugs after you select the item you want to move.

The stages are pretty basic in the beginning and you quickly get the hang of the game, as long as you pay attention to the rules and the on-screen tutorial. Hence, you are given a certain number of beetles and you must use them to carefully remove items from the level without dropping the precious lanterns, or making them impossible to reach for the fireflies.

With each new level, a lot more objects are added into the mix, and the challenge gets that much more stressful. In essence, you have to calculate what and how is going to move after you remove objects, which means that it may take you a while to complete them. However, the effort is worth it, and the rest of the gameplay is smooth enough not to be annoying.

Things are not so bad from a technical point of view either, because the visual aspect is not bad at all and the level design is rather decent on most occasions. The animations are not bad at all, although there are very few of them anyway. Lastly, the physics engine is quite convincing, even if it might fail to appear realistic every now and again.

In the end, Nightflies 2 has a way of keeping getting you hooked from the first few levels, and it gets increasingly more difficult to let it go after that. Hence, if you enjoy having a good time and you do not mind the rather poor amount of content included, this is a fine choice to make.