2019-04-01 PC Gamer

So far so familiar. ButMy Time at

Portiaoscillates between being just

enough of an engaging take on a

comforting genre to draw you in, and

an infuriating me-too

whose glacial pace

steals more of your

time than it deserves.

After the usual

tutorial-type gubbins,

the first significant

commission you

receive from the mayor

is for a bridge to

connect Portia to Amber Island – a

little spit of land near your workshop.

You’ll need two Wooden Bridge

Heads (basically the on and off ramps

for the bridge) and one Wooden

Bridge Body. You can construct one

segment at a time using a crafting

platform called the Assembly Station.

But the Bridge Heads need three

copper pipes and five hardwood

planks each. Hardwood comes from

the big trees nearby, but the axe you

crafted for the tutorial isn’t strong

enough so you must smelt copper

and tin (obtained via mining trips to

the abandoned ruins or hacking away

at stones) to make bronze bars and

buy an expensive (for this stage in

the game) upgrade kit from a local

store. You now have the ability to

get hardwood!

But you need

hardwood planks not

hardwood, so you’ll

need a cutter. Cutters

need two copper blades

and five stone bricks.

You go back to the

furnace to make the

bricks, but the copper

blades come from a

grinder, and a grinder requires two

old parts, three copper bars and two

grinding stones. So it’s back to the

ruins for old parts, copper ore and

stone, then to the furnace and

worktable to refine some of the

materials into a usable format. Don’t

forget you’ll need extra copper ore to

refine into the copper bars which can

then be ground to form the copper

pipes. Oh, and you have to fuel the

furnace and the grinder so you’ll

need a whole lot of wood (as distinct

from hardwood) and power stones.

After this, the Bridge Body is

relatively straightforward, although

still a slog in terms of the time and

energy it takes to actually craft

everything. Obtaining each of these

parts teaches you how the game’s

production loops work, but calling it

one mission instead of about eight

separate missions is the problem. It

means spending hours and hours in

the early game, chipping away at a

monumental task without a drip feed

of encouragement.

PERSISTENCE OF TIME

Outside the crafting missions and

commissions, the systems are a

mixed bag. The fighting is dull –

slash, slash, slash, dodge roll is pretty

much all you need. The villagers

aren’t very engaging, so I have no

desire to cultivate friendships or

romances. The farming is... fine?

Seasonal celebrations are fun but

involve minigames of variable quality.

And the home decor and fashion are

too tied to stats boosts for a

decorative approach to really work.

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. But when I wasn’t in the

right mood progress felt artificially

slow – like it was being throttled by

resource requirements, forcing you to

play longer than feels good.

To give you a sense of this, I’ve put

about 40 hours into my save and I

think I’m less than a third of the way

through the main questline. I’ve

spent some of that time completing

secondary quests, taking on

workshop commissions and so on.

For the right player, that will feel like

phenomenal value for money. For

everyone else I suspect the busywork

will eventually prove too much of a

bore to stick with it.

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

Alifesimwhoseslow

pace overshadows what

it does well

EXPECT TO PAY

£25

DEVELOPER

Pathea Games

PUBLISHER

Team 17

REVIEWED ON

IntelCorei7-5820k,

GTX970,16GBRAM,

Wndows 10

MULTIPLAYER

None

LINK

portia.pathea.net

63

A glacial pace and

abundance of busywork

make My Time at

Portia a tough

recommendation.

VERDICT

Progress felt ...

like it was being

throttled by

resource

requirements

M

y Time at Portiais slow. Achingly slow at times. So slow,

in fact, that it sometimes feels like it should be an idle

game and I have to fight the urge to tab away and check

back later. The game is a sandboxy life sim in the mould

ofStardew ValleyorAnimal Crossing. It sees you take

over your dad’s dilapidated workshop and attempt to restore it to

prosperity, one commission at a time.

FESTIVE FUNSpecial holidays come with seasonal events

DAY OF THE

BRIGHT SUN

Follow an airship as it drops

presents (push townsfolk

asidetograbthebestloot).

DAY OF MEMORIES

Amomentofsilenceforthe

dead quickly deteriorates

intoastun-gunfightover

Ghost Badges.

WINTER SOLSTICE

Gatherroundagiant

casserole and contribute to

ahotpot–addingtheright

produce boosts friendships.

GO SLOW

MY TIME AT PORTIA is hungry for

your evenings. By Philippa Warr

My Time at Portia

REVIEW