My Time at Sandrock – PC (P)review

Genre: Crafting and farming life simulator RPG
Developer: Pathea Games
Publisher: Pathae Games, Focus Entertainment, PM Studios inc, DMM Games
Release Date: May 25th, 2022
Edited by AlexKnight2005

My Time at Sandrock is a crafting RPG made by a Chinese developer Pathea Games, set in the same universe as My Time at Portia, the first game in a series that has the possibility of running at least eight games (one for each major location in the Free Cities region). Each of the games we have now has callbacks to the others, including the sharing of a couple of characters. In both games, especially Sandrock, we see more characters that connect with other areas that have yet to be explored in a game of their own—Barnarock, Atara, Walnut Groove (not a typo!), and Lucien, to name just a few. Other nations and cities get a mention, and our Builders hail from the opposite ends of Alliance territory.

Speaking of Builders, My Time at Sandrock chronicles the story of two Builders, the Protagonist (Max or Lucy by default), who hails from the northern city of Highwind (which is technically two but let’s not quibble), and Mi-an, newly imported from Tallsky—to take the place of a single retiring Builder who will eventually turn up in Portia during the time My Time at Portia runs. Coming soon (and likely already available by the time you read this) is a Multiplayer DLC that will probably go into the history of Sandrock (references are made in the new content update to people that were around previously but aren’t now, including a pack of Builders that helped build the town we see in the current game).

Throughout the game, we’ll spend a lot of time putting out fires as various disasters loom over Sandrock. Unlike Portia, where the very survival of the town is never actually threatened with its very survival, Sandrock isn’t nearly so fortunate. From green beginnings as a large oasis in the middle of the Eufaula Desert, it’s suffered serious environmental degradation in the building process. As a result, desertification of the area has overtaken the town, and things are already pretty dire—which is where you, the player, come in. For every disaster (and there are a number of them thus far), there is a way for the builder to make a difference, usually by building something. That’ll include ruin diving, both abandoned and Hazardous (two different sets of mechanics, even); each story dungeon can be visited again as one of those two types. Mind you; we still haven’t seen all the content. Many of your resources will come from these places, including rare items that you may only need once, but a questline will often ask for more of them. The first one is usually guarded by a boss (but if you can take it down, you’re guaranteed to get it).

So… maybe we make the tacks out of iron this time. Since they seem to lack brass and we have a choice of other materials, let’s go with that. Visually, the game is better than its predecessor: Characters aren’t as cartoony (but are still anime-like), and the environment speaks of the wear and tear of decades, from the bits of brush that dot the landscape, to the buildings, to the damage inflicted by the occasional sandstorm. Oh, and the Geeglers. You’ll meet them after a little while. Not that they’re the only strange critter around these parts. At any rate, it’s all consistent, right down to the sandstorms. One tiny annoyance, though. The player characters are noticeably smaller than most of the original residents, especially the adult men and the younger adult women. The older characters tend to be (but are not always) closer in size to the Builders. It’s an odd thing that makes the Builders themselves look more like kids in their early teens than the adults they’re supposed to be. Of course, the actual children in town come off like the under-twelves they are.

The music is varied between combat and various types of environments (dungeons, overworld, town, and such), but there are places you’ll spend far more time in than others, which is where things fall down a bit. More balance in the time spent hearing one tune over another would probably go a long way. Sound FX, on the other hand, evokes the nature of the beast: Mining has some interesting sounds when you strike things with your pick hammer, varied by the type of thing you just whacked, and footstep sounds change based on what you’re moving on, and the voice acting is solid. There are a huge number of voice actors (enough that we don’t hear the same person in two different roles) involved, some of which are returning for this game from Portia (the characters the two games share)

For those who adventured in Portia, gameplay in My Time at Sandrock is like going home and finding out they renovated the house while you were away. The UI has been cleaned up, some minor QTEs have been added, and some new minigames (the Game Center… seriously) are on offer, with more care put into the details this time around. The inventory system has been reworked to make opening more space in ye olde backpacks cheaper initially, but it can get seriously spendy down the road. Mind you; there’s more money to be had closer to the end of the current content than before, so it all evens out. You need to keep an eye on a few things, but I won’t spoil the fun now. If you remember the environment the game is set in, it’ll make sense.

Here is where things start looking up. The game appears feature complete, with only a thick layer of polish to the mechanics still needed. What My Time at Sandrock is not, however, is content-complete. It’s an Early Access game, and as such, something had to give. The devs at Pathea took the wiser course and have started giving us major content patches (as of this writing, the first is out, and the intent is to put out a couple of smaller patches before another huge load in December). The game shipped with twenty to thirty hours up front, and the new patch has added another ten to fifteen to that. There are a series of “story” missions (which don’t pay as well as commissions, despite being far more impactful) that are the primary vehicle for telling the story of the events that happen in Sandrock, running parallel to the events of My Time in Portia, lagging somewhat from the events of the previous game. On our first day in Sandrock, the previous builder, Mason, is retiring and gives you his dilapidated workshop a week or so before he leaves for retirement in Portia. From these humble beginnings, we get a grand adventure to rebuild Sandrock to its former glory as a forested gem in the middle of the desert. You’ll learn farming, mining, and combat while working your backside off just to keep up. Even the major characters have a feeling of depth that is truly welcome—especially the romanceable characters. Most of them don’t yet have much of their content done, but many still manage to draw you in. Except for Miguel. He’s… rude. Very rude. Obnoxious, even. Or Cooper, who can talk until your ears fall off and your brain flees to Atara. Vivi is everybody’s grandma (and is very disappointed in her boy), and so on.

Playing the game, you’re going to run into some bugs—nothing too ugly, but keep an eye out for the occasional graphical glitch or quest that fails to trigger when expected. On the control front, I recommend keyboard and mouse; despite some of the keybindings not making a lot of sense, most games put the player’s inventory on “I,” whereas My Time at Sandrock uses “B.” Again, Portia players will have an advantage early on getting the interface to do what you want it to do. If you just can’t work it out, they do give us the ability to rebind to whatever you prefer. The thing that really gets me is the game automatically filling empty quickbar slots with whatever you’ve picked up most recently. You can rearrange it (and kick the regular stone off the bar with two keypresses), but there may be a reason I left those empty, and having to clean it out again, every alternate step gets old after a couple of whiles.

All in all, My Time at Sandrock is a good game that aspires to greatness. The core is solid, major bugs are conspicuous by their absence (and get fixed quickly when reported, even most of the minor bugs), the impending Multiplayer DLC is workable in its Alpha state, and the story is more compelling than that of its predecessor. For those who like to see iteration and improvement between series games, My Time at Sandrock delivers. It is the better game, and between the two, you get some lovely world-building to boot. If the folks at Pathea Games keep it up, they’ll have a great title that’ll be hard to top next time.