Release date: 15 January 2019
Developer: Pathea Games
Genre: Adventure / Crafting / Light Simulation
Here’s another lovely game I’d like to discuss: My Time at Portia. Both its graphics and its colours create a childlike atmosphere that warms you at first glance. Cartoon-like characters and music that never wears you out reinforce that feeling. The game is rated PEGI 7. Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) is an age-rating system that categorises games according to elements such as violence, sexuality and behaviour that might set a bad example for children. Active since 2003, the organisation determines suitable age ratings according to content. You could call it a form of parental guidance. My Time at Portia is PEGI 7, meaning its content is suitable for players aged seven and over.
The game takes place in a town called Portia. After creating and naming our character in a simple screen with options that aren’t particularly detailed but suit the game’s style very well, we enter the town. Portia is where our character’s father lived and died. We have inherited his workshop. Arriving in this small, charming town from the outside world for the first time, we introduce ourselves to its residents, obtain the necessary permission from the municipality to operate the workshop, and our story begins. The setting is actually a new, post-apocalyptic world. Dangerous abandoned factories and buildings from the old modern era stand around the map. In a sense, the developers have built a utopia on the ruins of modern civilisation. This small, charming town, living through agriculture and animal husbandry, has taken the place of the old civilisation destroyed by technology. Throughout the game, digging in the mines uncovers parts and discs left by that civilisation. You can put those parts to use in your workshop to make useful tools.
Choices and Consequences
Two sides representing science and faith take very different views of the old, modern civilisation: the church and the scientists. The church rejects the old technology outright. It argues that the vanished modern society used technology to cause enormous damage to nature and itself, and that destroying every surviving object and tool will protect the town and nature from the same fate. Scientists in the town’s research workshop think the opposite. In their view, the remains of the old civilisation can help us create useful inventions and innovations that make life easier. They believe we should research and assess all of it.
With your arrival, those pieces of old technology somehow become new inventions in your hands, helping the townspeople.
The game isn’t designed to put you under pressure; on the contrary, it is fun to play. The music in particular never becomes tiresome. Background game music usually wears on me after a while, but I never felt that in My Time at Portia. Although I normally turn the music off in the settings sooner or later, I never needed to during the many hours I spent here.
Returning to Your Father’s Home
Our aim in My Time at Portia is to build relationships in our father’s hometown and help it develop by producing things in the workshop we own. At the same time, we try to come first in the Commerce Guild’s workshop competition. Every task successfully completed for the townspeople develops the town, and you can see it with your own eyes. Build sprinklers and irrigation for someone’s field, for example, and the field is then watered by that system. Produce Dee-Dees and stops for transport around town, and they remain there permanently. My Time at Portia has a world that changes and responds in real time to the tasks you complete.
I admit that, despite the many positive comments I had read, the childlike graphics made me prejudiced at first. I thought I was facing another simple game made to entertain little children, with nothing to offer anyone over nine. But as I played, its absorbing structure and detailed gameplay drew me in. After the first few hours, those reservations gave way to curiosity and wondering what the next day would bring.
You have a calendar in My Time at Portia. From time to time, it brightens your routine of crafting and gathering resources with very enjoyable activities. This is really the part that draws in players of all ages. Portia constantly hosts festivals, celebrations and competitions. You can register and take part, and success lets you buy special items from markets available for that occasion. The activities never stop throughout the year, so you don’t become trapped in an endless workshop production cycle. You look forward to tomorrow, to new tasks or the next event. This is how the game keeps your curiosity alive.
There is plenty to do in Portia. You can take daily jobs from the Commerce Guild to help the townspeople, or grab your pickaxe and gather resources in the abandoned mines around town. You can kick large trees to knock down apples and honey, or hunt the pink llamas you will hate to hit for their fur and meat. Spend the gold you earn upgrading your home and workshop, learning more complex designs and producing them.
Placing objects you find or make in your home and workshop can increase attributes such as health, attack and defence. It also lets you decorate your house and garden to your own taste. Build a coop or shed, raise chicks, ducks or cows, and obtain meat and milk or sell the animals you have raised.
Portia: A Living World of Days, Nights and Seasons
Portia also has day-and-night and seasonal cycles. The game saves daily, automatically, only when you sleep. You cannot save separately at other times. You need to finish everything by 3 a.m. at the latest. After three, your character passes out and wakes up in bed to a new day.
The game also lets you marry and have children. Your relationships with people in town improve as you talk to them, give gifts or finish their tasks. Taking part in town events is very important, because it automatically improves your relationships with all the residents. Many events also reward you with resources, minerals and items. Make sure you follow the calendar. These festivals also unlock cutscenes; you can find the number of them in the tabs on your character screen.
You will spend plenty of time gathering resources and producing new tools in your workshop. Meanwhile, you need to deal with the town’s problems and complete the tasks it needs. Turkish language support is a great help in understanding the crafting system, which may seem complicated at first. It is also a major advantage for younger Turkish-speaking players trying to understand the game.
Data discs are among the things you will need most to develop your workshop. These are the CDs we know. Although portable USB drives have largely replaced them nowadays, data discs apparently held much of the old civilisation’s information. We collect them while digging in abandoned mines. Take them to the town’s scientists and they research the information, giving you new tool designs in return. Your workshop develops, letting you process more types of ore and produce more varied equipment. If you take the discs to the church staff instead, you can exchange them for products in their shop or hand them over for destruction in return for gold. My advice is to start saving discs early and take them to Petra. She will decode the information and give you designs for new equipment you can produce and will need for quests.
Alongside your own weapons, armour and accessories, you can make household objects, workshop machinery and many other things. To upgrade your home or workshop, you need to visit the construction office beside the town hall. House upgrades require a great deal of gold and resources. Avoiding excessive spending on that menu early on, and focusing instead on quests and collecting new designs, will make things easier later.