My Time at Portia

My Time at Portia is a 2019 farm sim game developed by Chinese studio Pathea Games and published by Team17. It has some similarities to other farm sims like Stardew Valley.

Plot
The game takes place long after civilization has been destroyed, where humans have emerged from underground and begun rebuilding society. The player is cast in the role of the child of a famous builder, who inherits their father's workshop in the independent city state of Portia after he goes travelling. The goal of the game is to expand the city of Portia and become the best builder.

Gameplay
The player must gather resources and combine them in recipes to create items. Eventually, players gain more tools that allow them to harvest resources faster, such as a chainsaw to chop down large trees. Once items are complete, they can be submitted for rewards, town favor and money. The largest assignments can directly change the town itself. The game also contains dungeons that require the player to fight enemies. It combines aspects of role-playing video games and simulation games.

Development
My Time at Portia was initially released as an early access game on Steam from 23 January 2018 before being fully released a year later. Three months later, it was ported to the following consoles: Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. A mobile version for Android and iOS was released on 5 August 2021 followed by macOS on 12 May 2022.

Reception
My Time at Portia received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Miranda Sanchez of IGN called its core gameplay fun, but saying that each of its parts was lacking in some way, and that the game had "annoying audio bugs". Alex Fuller of RPGamer called the game "charming" and "a lovely place to spend time in", but also saying that it was too long, criticizing how "players have to wait for NPCs to decide to do something". He stated that it was "very enjoyable", but had "significant weaknesses". Rich Meister of Destructoid said that while the world was "bright and full of charm", "waiting around for things to happen can get old pretty fast", and calling the game's mining "painfully dull". Philippa Warr of PC Gamer criticized the game's pacing, stating, "By being so slow, My Time At Portia both repels and appeals. It offers a kind of gaming oasis, making few demands and just pootling along. That type of thing can be a place of respite for the right player or the right mood." Ginny Woo of GameSpot praised its tranquil environment, pleasing aesthetics, and well-designed crafting system while lamenting the lack of meaning in several mechanics, the lack of payoff in the narrative's premise, and the conflicting day-night cycle pacing. Zoe Delahunty-Light of GamesRadar+ lauded the convincing NPCs, varied seasonal events, and sense of progression while taking issue with the loading times and lack of voice acting in cutscenes. Chris Scullion of Nintendo Life recommended the game after a patch was issued in order to fix its lengthy loading times. Rebecca Stow of Push Square called the game "vibrant, relaxing, and brimming with charm".

The PC version was among the best-selling new releases of the month on Steam.

Sequel
In October 2020, Pathea Games announced a sequel titled My Time at Sandrock, and planned to release it in early access for PC via Steam in March 2021, with the full version for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S originally planned for a mid-2022 release. However, in March 2021, Pathea Games announced that they had not received a local rating certification to publish the game online, so it seemed like early access would be potentially delayed until after May 2021. Early access release was subsequently pushed out further until early 2022. The game released via early access on May 26, 2022. After a delay from its September launch window, the full version of the game was released on November 2, 2023.

While there are no plans to introduce multiplayer to My Time at Portia, its sequel does.