My Time at Sandrock

I have 60+ hours of playtime in My Time at Sandrock because I genuinely enjoyed the game. It's clear Pathea has learned from some of their mistakes. The gameplay is fun and has been fine tuned; the graphics are downright beautiful compared to Portia, which could be a bit uncanny valley sometimes. The voice acting present so far is done well, and there is much less disparity in volume. Sandrock itself is a delight, the desert environment and its challenges with water and wood are really fun to work with- I almost wish Pathea would make it even more challenging, by limiting resources even further. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend Sandrock yet, for one reason: this is an alpha build, and calling it a game in "early access" is extremely generous to the point of deception. I play games like Sandrock primarily for the characters and the life sim elements; I like to build my business/farm/etc while developing relationships with the community and learning about the NPCs. Sandrock is currently missing the vast majority of it's character content, which is a very odd choice for this genre. Many characters aren't even developed at all, like Rocky's wife Krystal, who exists in game but doesn't have a daily routine, so she just stands in one spot all the time. The carpenter Rian and his wife Dan-bi are another good example of this, as they both feel much less developed than other characters. The real shame is that many characters seem very interesting- Catori for example has a picture of her young son in her arcade and even mentions on the Day of Memories that "he used to love" that holiday and she misses him- but because her character isn't fully developed we never hear about this again. Speaking of holidays and events, many also have a very unfinished feel: the Day of Memories is great, but the next major holiday, the Running of the Yakmel is underwhelming, and the NPCs don't even have unique dialogue programmed for that day. There are many other examples of this, where corners have been obviously cut to get the alpha version out- the NPCs talk about special vicious monsters that come out during sandstorms but besides the first scripted one I've never seen one; some characters seem to have no logic behind their presence in the town- like why is Ernest still in Sandrock? Where is he living? Does he come there on the train on certain days? He really needs to tell you when you meet him, because there is no reason you should find him sitting in the apartment...

NOTE: this review is about the "current" state of the game - this is still in early access. Graphics = game is beautiful - definitely an upgrade compared to Portia - 9/10 Game mechanics = alot of QOL improvements so definitely a plus - 10/10 Fun factor = I've clocked about 60hrs into the game at the time of this review - for some reason I had more fun at Portia - everything felt like a grind in Sandrock: managing water managing stamina is harder managing time hated traveling in Sandrock - everything felt so far away Recommend? = its more like 60/40 in favor of "not recommended" for me. In truth I went back to starting a new game in Portia so I guess you can do that while waiting for everything to be ironed out in Sandrock

Loved playing My Time at Portia so i would pick up My Time at Sandrock aswell. The game is still Early Acces but i expect the game will deliver a full experience on full release like My Time at Portia. Also the price will go up on full release.

Not a bad game, but I have struggled to really get into it. Needs more time to bake since at the time of this review it is not well optimised at all.

My Time At Sandrock is a major improvment over Portia, despite the game still being in a very early stage it feels very full of content and is worth at least checking out. The gameplay loop is the same as Portia's, you're doing requests and jobs while also steadily improving your workshop. For an early access title it feels very content heavy and I look forward to seeing what else is added.

Very much like My Time at Portia, but there are several minor game design and graphic improvements that make it feel like Portia 2.0. For example, you can now save any time during the day, rather than going to bed to save. Inventory in your storage is now usable - a huge improvement. The game is currently in Early Access, so there is a lot of missing content, but I've played 20+ hours and am having a good time with very few bugs.

Put 10 hours in it over a weekend, great pick up and play. Good characters to meet. A lot more fleshed out than the last game in the series.

A nice building / resource gathering / farming / socializing game. The game is still in active development while in early access so it is hard to say too much about it as things might change decently soon. There is definitely a lot of content there to play and if it wasn't for the game constantly reminding you that it is in early access I wouldn't even assume it is if it weren't from the random bugs you encounter from time to time. Works without issues on Linux with Proton (7.0-6)