1. Prince of Persia (1 hour)

The eponymous Prince had one hour to rescue the damsel in distress, in a game that simply wasn’t that long…

The original Prince of Persia game by designer Jordan Mechner, despite being a bona fide classic, is also one of the shortest video games ever made. The reason is that players had only one hour of real time to rescue the game’s princess from the clutches of the evil Vizier Jaffar in this 1989 game, so a complete playthrough even with a couple of deaths along the way would not take gamers that long.

But still, the game’s great atmosphere, superb animation, and great platforming and swordfights made it one of the great video game classics of all time. The original game looks quite dated by today’s standards though, but thankfully a remastered edition was released in 2007 which recreated the charm and style of the original game, while adding a bevy of improvements, although retaining that one hour time limit to rescue the princess in distress…