A Friendly Place

Of all the games that I've played in the past few years, one of the biggest surprises was Stardew Valley.  It was a complete shock when I found myself engulfed in a pixelated game about growing crops, making friends, being part of a community, and trying to build something from the ground up.  Where was the shooting?  Where was the violence that seems to be one of the mainstays of modern video gaming?  How could I possibly be enjoying a game where I'm trying to figure out which gifts to give to the friendly citizens of Pelican Town!  Stardew Valley was a bit of a ground breaker for me and it seems like it started a trend of games that are less centered around the violent staples of gaming and are more focused on the gentler, more positive aspects.  It's with my enjoyment of Stardew Valley in mind that I found myself eyeballing another game that seems to be of a similar mindset--My Time at Portia.

My character Linda chillin' with a collection of weird relics.

If you took many of the same premises from Stardew Valley and injected them into a 3D world that is inspired by Studio Ghibli films, you would have My Time at Portia.  The story is oddly similar to that of my beloved Stardew--you've inherited a rundown workshop from a recently deceased family member and you have decided to settle down and build it into the kind of place that the whole town can be proud of.  The major difference is that you are running a workshop rather than a farm--crafting items is at the center of your world.

Crafting requires you to spend much of your time gathering materials to turn into finished items.  Chopping down trees, mining in ruins, and slaying various wildlife will help you find all raw materials needed.  When first starting, much of these materials will go toward crafting the many different machines that you will need to turn these raw materials into more complex items--a cutter is needed to turn wood into finished planks, a furnace will turn lumps of minerals into bars, a skiver will turn pieces of fur into finished leather, and a grinder will turn metal bars into different machine parts.  Building each machine requires raw materials to be gathered, time to turn them into finished parts, and then finally, to be constructed.

Linda got a hat and a house upgrade.

Figuring out how to spend your time is one of the big challenges.  While your items are being created on your machines (which takes varying amounts of in-game time) you have to decide exactly what you want to accomplish.  You're definitely going to need more Gols (the in-game currency) so taking commissions from the trade office is a great way to make money.  Commissions require you to create a certain number of items for specific citizens in the community.  They are on a deadline, so you have a set amount of time in which to finish.  Besides just getting money for completing commissions, you are also rewarded with relationship points (commissions are one of the best ways to build relationship points) and town reputation.

Another good way to spend time is to explore the ruins located in town.  Ruins offer the ability to gather stone, minerals, sand, soil as well as relics which, when all the pieces are completed, can be turned into unique pieces of furniture that can be placed in your home and which will give you buffs.  Finding relics involves using a scanner that will identify glowy places and then digging toward them.  Completing relics isn't straightforward and you will often find yourself with many, many pieces, but never the right pieces to actually finish a relic.  Storing all the different relic pieces requires a large quantity to chests--I would recommend building multiple just for relics!  You can also find data discs which can be turned in to the research center and used to unlock new construction plans.

Photo mode lets you snap images of the world.  This is my workshop.

When you're not busy exploring ruins, you will often find yourself being asked to complete jobs for the city (the main storyline) or for specific individuals around town.  Like commissions, these jobs are a great way to build relationships with specific citizens.  Unlike commissions, individual jobs aren't on a hard timeline and can be completed at your leisure.  Some of these jobs are quite large and can require the construction of several very large or very complicated items.

My Time at Portia also features a system of levels and talent points.  The talent tree can be divided up into three distinct areas--combat, crafting, and social.  Putting points into combat will help you do more damage (which doesn't seem particularly useful early in the game as you will be mostly slaying low level creatures for crafting materials, but it does factor in later) or dodge more effectively.  Points invested in the crafting tree will help you make the most of the time you spend gathering materials--some talents will increase the amount of stamina you have (which allows you to perform more mining, lumbering before you run out) or reduce the amount that is required to perform gathering abilities.  Social points can help you build relationships faster or offer you better prices when buying or selling.  The talent trees could definitely use some work as the combat tree doesn't seem very worthwhile early on and the crafting tree features some talents that seem either oddly phrased or completely useless--for example, one talent "increases the amount of damage" that the ax does.  I think this means that chopping down trees is easier, but it makes it sound like you are attacking things using the ax (which, you're not.).  The social points can also seem a little iffy--especially since I've spent very little time on the social aspect of the game.

The relationship with Pinky the cat is one I want to cultivate.

For an early access game there is a surprising amount of content--I've been playing for 55 hours now and I haven't completed the main storyline.  Prior to the big "harbor" update that was introduced this week, I was having some terrible bouts of poor performance--extremely laggy spurts that saw the game stagger into a slow-motion-esque stuttery mess.  The most recent update has completely fixed the performance issues that I was having and it's running great now.  The normal early access ups and downs are to be expected, but the devs seem like they are listening to feedback and fixing bugs and issues fairly quickly.

Portia has had a strange pull on me since I bought it.  I sometimes find myself thinking about what I'm really doing in the game, but I still want to play!  There's always another upgrade to work toward or a major project that isn't completed.  The story could use some work (supposedly they are introducing character specific missions in the next big patch) and the dialogue is a work in progress, but there is plenty to enjoy in Portia.

If you're a fan of Stardew Valley who is looking for a similar experience (and, I'm just going to say it, Portia is eerily similar in many aspects) you should think about grabbing a copy of My Time at Portia.  It has the promise of being another fun crafting/farming game that isn't centered around tons of violence (you will need to kill a plethora of cute llamas for their fur...sorry).

ADDITION (6/18/18):
The later stages of the game are increasingly grind-y.  I've had two different jobs that require an obscene amount of fiber cloth (75 and 100).  That means taking to the fields to slay a massive number of llamas.  It's frustrating that I'm sitting on almost 500 colorful fur (which is used for like 2 items) and almost 300 regular fur...and those giant piles of materials are basically completely useless.  There needs to be some rebalancing or efforts made to come up with a more diverse pool of materials that can be used to craft items.  I crafted the advance skiver quite awhile back and have used it exactly 0 times--what if you could use it to break down the different kinds of furs into the worn fur you need to craft fiber cloth?  Or if you could use it to make more cloth, but with high quality materials...something like that.