My Time at Portia

Recommended with caveats. It's decently fun in the beginning, but less so as the game drags on. There's a reason only approximately 8% of players have completed the game.
Some of the issues I had:
- The game only saves when you sleep. You'll be used to it if you've played Stardew, but that doesn't mean it's good game design.
- You had better enjoy fishing minigames. The fishing minigame in Portia is better than most farm/life sims, but I know it's something many fans of the genre dislike. Fishing is, hands down, the fastest way to make money in this game. The second fastest is mining, which is just pressing the action button ad nausem while eating the occasional meal to replenish stamina. When it comes to making serious cash to upgrade your workshop, fishing is king in Portia with farming and manufacturing not even coming close.
- The longer the game drags on, the less frequent main story events occur. I could have easily beaten the game in the first year if some story events didn't take so long to trigger. This made late game feel like a slog to me.
- Marriage and children don't add anything interesting. There are achievements for each and that's honestly the only thing they're good for. Hiring a worker is better for your workshop than anything your spouse will contribute and children are a complete waste of time.
- Titanium bars would disappear if I placed them in factory storage. It was only titanium bars that had this issue. Nothing was using them and they weren't "hidden" in any way, which is an excuse you'll often see people making in online forums. It's a terrible bug that cost me hours of wasted time trying to figure out an automated work around before I decided to give up, keep them in my inventory, and manually craft the items that needed them for the final mission. It was the only part of the game I found truly frustrating.
Despite its flaws, My Time at Portia is an interesting take on the genre, with far more emphasis on building and manufacturing than other similar games. Just don't go into it expecting 3D SDV and you'll probably have a decent time.

One of the first game that I "double dip" both on my smartphone and now Steam. I bought this bundled with My Time at Sandrock back in 2022. Honestly, I didn't finish this game all the way to the end until I started playing Sandrock when it's out from early access phase. So I will compared both of them directly.
Pros :
It's Cozy/farming sims game like Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, you named it. And, in this game you play in 3rd person view, with some some kind of base building mode for your farm/workshop and there's "automation" mode, something that you could find on Factorio or Satisfactory kind of games I assume.
On top of all gameplay features that you could find on any other Cozy/Farming Sims game, This one has some unique feature called Jealousy. As the name suggests, you could get in a relationship with several bachelor/bachelorette at once and if you get caught by another npc that you have relationship with, just like in real life if you get caught cheating, you'll paid the price. Add some more spiciness and uniqueness into this game
Cons :
(This one is fixed in My Time at Sandrock) You can only pick 1 commission per day and you can't improve it further whatsoever (your biggest source of income early on in the game).
(This one is fixed in My Time at Sandrock) In some instances, you need to equip the resources or material in your one of your quick bar slot that only have 9 slot to finish some task. Like early game Assembly Station (to build something) , Cooking Pot (for cooking), and some missions that requires you to place the one you've already build at designated location.Basically you need to open your inventory and shuffle things up back and forth every single time.
(This one is fixed in My Time at Sandrock) Your backpack inventory, your storage box and your factory storage box are not interconnected. And again you'll need to transfer them manually back and forth
This game has more than hundreds if not thousand different items. Sorting them in different storage boxes and sifting through them all when you need it is nice and all, but I wish this game has search function to search an item(s) in your inventory and storage boxes.
All in all, for the sake of story continuity definitely play this game first before Sandrock. Because if you play Sandrock first, it feels so hard to go back (at least for me).Definitely recommend this game. Buy both of this and Sandrock. And this game always on deep discount here and there on any Steam sales event.
7.5 / 10

I think a simple way to tell you how much I recommend this game is the following: my mom, wife, and I all got obsessed with it, and we're all very different gamers. This is a phenomenal game! Can't wait to try out Sandrock.

My Time at Portia is a fantastic cozy and chill game.
To me it's got some Stardew Valley vibes, but instead of being focused on farming (which is possible in Portia as well), it's more focused on completing commissions and quests, by creating or building items.
It's also one of those games with a nice detailed Wiki which is a great help. Besides the things I mentioned, you can also raise animals, increase relationships with the NPCs, participate in (holiday) events and decorate your house/garden.
The combat is simple, and pauses when you open your inventory so you can heal in peace. Also if you die during a boss fight, in most cases you just respawn at the boss while you have full health & the boss health didn't change.
A full price of €30 you will definitely get your money's worth if you're going by the €1 for 1 hour rule, though the game regularly goes on sale. As I write this, it's 80% off, so you can pick it up for €6 which is very much worth it if you like cozy and relaxing games.
I've enjoyed my time here and I'm looking forward to trying out their follow-up game My Time at Sandrock & eventually My Time at Evershine which is currently in development as well!
Portia only has singleplayer mode, but Sandrock & Evershine both (will) have online co-op.
Achievements
Going for 100% completion is a grind and there are some missable achievements, so it's worth to check out a guide beforehand if you don't want to start over multiple characters.
The game automatically backs up the last 10 days you've played which is very helpful, and you can also create your own backups in the "Load" list in the main menu too. This is great for some achievements like the marriage ones so you can go back to a previous save instead of having to divorce and lose friendship points for example.
10/10

SHORT

A pretty decent farming (crafting) simulator. The game is quite grindy and has some sound bugs - that can be forgiven. The setting, plot, and soundtrack, might be worth it. It will take you about 150 hours to finish the game and get all the achievements.

LONG

My Time at Portia is a farming simulator with an emphasis on crafting. The 3D gameplay is surprisingly good, especially when it comes to exploring the map, managing the workshop, and interacting with the environment in general. However, the learning curve is a bit steep, and this, coupled with the complexity of crafting, can be a bit daunting for some people during the first hours.

The combat is mediocre, nothing special, a bit of a hack-and-slash mixed with souslike - it feels good when you land a critical hit, but the enemies, dungeons, and bosses are quite boring and repetitive. The AI ​​pathing is pathetic (enemies have trouble climbing steps and ramps).

Although the graphics aren't very impressive, the map is very pretty and the setting is great. The town of Portia is super charming and has a unique style. However, some regions of the map feel empty and lifeless, with huge areas without any kind of interaction.

The plot is cool - nothing spectacular, and the individual stories of the NPCs are also nice (some even funny), you'll be able to have a few laughs and create some connections with at least some of them.

The part that impressed me the most, both positively and negatively, was the sound. The exploration soundtracks are very good and provide a great ambiance. The voice acting is also surprisingly good. Now, the entire sound design part is terrible, the combat soundtracks are boring, repetitive and trigger at random moments, most of the bosses have no sounds - this also happens with some dialogues and cutscenes.

Do I recommend it? Totally! Considering the sound bugs, I wouldn't pay full price, but this game is often 80% off. It will take you about 150 hours to complete the game and get all the achievements.

It's far from Stardew Valley if you're looking for a similiar game. It's more towards crafting and building, and you do have a lot of grinding for materials to do at the beginning of the game. The characters are a bit more childlike with their demeanor, design are a bit lackluster too. The midgame towards end is so much more rewarding and fun though, but you do get bored of it after a while, i ended up downloading some mods to get through the more grinding missions easier by reducing the action time for certain digging / cutting.

Do get it if it's on a discount, otherwise i think it's alright to miss.

Without mods, the game is a tedious but charming Casual Life Game. It puts more emphasis on crafting as you are a builder foremost, than farming. A large cast of quirky characters with about 80% voiced lines. Several romanceable characters and a sprawling open world map that expands as you help the town.
With mods however, the tedium can be reduce to suit your needs.

Recommended Mods:
- Your Game Your Settings (to adjust tedium of crafting times and run speed as well as speed up any other aspect, such as relations, reputation, and experience gain.)
- Longer Days (set to 2x)
- Instant Loot (this allows INSTANT pickup of items, rather than waiting a few seconds for items to fly to you from the ground. Can also be used to pickup relics instantly should you choose to do so.)
-Always Open (allows access to places outside their hours including the research center, musuem, A&G and the commission board.)
- More Displayed Missions (The game limits this to 3, this allows you to raise that to whatever you like, though if they are very long they will cut off of the screen)
- More Commerce Orders (Hard limit in game is 1 a day. This lets you not only increase that, but increase the maximum amount of orders that appear on the board)
- Infinite Levels (for those who want to max out the skill tree and continue to become stronger)