Some time ago, in the distant past, our civilization fell into ruin. The wonders of that age became forgotten mysteries and treasures to be unearthed by intrepid adventurers. Your estranged father has sent you a deed to his old farm with instructions to start your new life for yourself. Here you will become an entrepreneur, farmer, explorer, and community member, building relationships and carving a place for yourself in the world. My Time At Portia is just a lovely game.
After a short introductory cinematic, setting the stage for your arrival on a sailing ship, you’ll meet the Commerce Guild leader who will guide you through the next few steps of your journey in the game. He’ll bring you to your house, get you started crafting, and introduce you to the mayor and a few other townsfolk.
My Time At Portia blends elements of crafting, role-playing, and social simulation in a real-time open world environment. Your character has three attribute paths they put points into as they level up. There is a combat, crafting, and social tree of perks to enhance your playstyle. To be successful in Portia you’ll need to engage in all three and choose the traits that will support you best. Combat is important for crafting and commissions, but harvesting and social progress are also vital. That can make trait choices challenging and requires a little forethought in how you want to grow your character.
There is a lot to do in Portia and there isn’t time to do everything in one day. The game plays in real time and you also have stamina to manage which is depleted every time you harvest, swing your weapon, or use any other left mouse button action. Small bits of stamina can be replenished by eating food, and the bar fully recharges every night when you go to bed, which also saves your character progress.
Crafting is done at your house through various stations you build to process the different types of ingredients and materials you collect. Armed with a Minecraft style tool and action bar you left click on nodes to harvest them. There are trees and rocks in the open world and there are also ruins which contain a voxel environment you can tunnel around into mine ore and rock while treasure hunting for ancient technology artifacts.
When you’re not crafting and filling commerce commissions there are people to meet and greet in Portia. There is an entire social system I haven’t fully explored yet. Every person in town has things they like and dislike and views about technology and other people in town. Some people might date you or play games with you, while others may not. It depends on your reputation and standing with them.
No crafting sim would be complete without fishing and Portia has offered up a fun and challenging system. You, of course, must craft your pole and harvest the bait before you can fish. Once you have a fish on the line the context of the screen switches and the fish moves around the screen. The cursor becomes a small circle you must keep over the fish while reeling it in with the left mouse button. Your line has stress counter that increments over time and rapidly increments when you move the circle of the fish. It also turns bright red when that happens to provide good visual feedback. If you can reel the fish in before the line breaks you get to keep it, if not then you have to try again. The bait is consumed either way.
Pathea Games has taken these systems and wrapped them up in a beautiful, engaging, and colorful world that is both whimsical and relatable, at the same time. Their Steam page says the game was inspired by the works of Studio Ghibli and it shows, but it doesn’t feel like a cheap copy. It feels lovingly handcrafted, populated with interesting personalities you want to spend time with.
My Time At Portia will release on Early Access January 23, according to their Steam store page. Not all systems are finished and there are some areas that need polish so if that is a concern for you, don’t worry, there’s a demo. If you’re a fan of relaxing crafting sims, Miyazaki movies, and beautiful art, then you should try the game out. There’s a demo!
Note: Our copy was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by PR.
