Over two million units sold, $20 million in revenue, 34,000 positive player reviews on Steam, and numerous ports on consoles and mobile devices: My Time at Portia was an absolute success when it was released in January 2019. The mix of farming and life simulation, rounded off with a few role-playing elements, simply hit the nerve of the time. So it was actually only logical that the Chinese developers of Pathea Games would eventually present us with an official successor.
In fact, it took almost three years until we finally got the one with My Time at Sandrock. Three years in which a Kickstarter campaign was started, half a million dollars raised and what was originally only planned as a DLC became a full-scale sequel. On May 26, 2022, the early access release of the open world adventure was officially due. And we took a look on the PC to see whether the creators actually managed to deliver an overall package that was even better in terms of play and technology.
At the beginning you don’t use any tools at all, but just dig in the dirt for materials.
Source: PC Games
Of course, nothing has changed in the starting position, the developers have remained true to their proven concept. So you play a little master builder again, which you can put together yourself at the beginning with an extensive character editor, unfortunately without proper options for beards. Then it’s off to a somewhat run-down small town, which you are supposed to use your manual skills to help it shine again. So far, so well known.
Everything around it is new: the setting, the characters, the story. The scene this time is namely the eponymous desert town of Sandrock, which has to deal with nasty bandits, aggressive lizard people and a missing mayor.
In addition, the change of scenery also brings some new things with it in a playful way: resources are a lot harder to find between stone and sand than in lush green Portia. For example, water is scarce. There are also hardly any trees. And you should better keep your hands off the few that are standing around in the area – otherwise the local environmental officer will get in trouble, who will also be happy to fine you.
When it comes to gathering resources, you have to be a little inventive: Instead of chopping wood and breaking stones, you prefer to collect scrap and then throw it in your new recycler. He makes usable crafting materials from metal and rubber snippets, which you can then process further on your workbench.
The recycling process of your scrap runs in real time. So you often have to stand around waiting in the area.
Source: PC Games
This is how the genre-typical gameplay loop quickly develops at the beginning: You run around and bang on everything that isn’t nailed down. You throw the stuff in the recycler to tinker you better tools. You then use them to farm higher-quality raw materials to build new machines that produce even better tools. And so on.
This arouses ambition at first, but soon turns out to be quite nerve-wracking. On the one hand, the constant collection is a bit monotonous, on the other hand, your inventory is constantly full. And then there’s your stamina, which feels like you’re going to run out by noon, so all you can do is walk around and chat with people.
The post My Time at Sandrock: Life simulation in the early access check appeared first on Gamingsym.