My Time at Portia Console Review: Build, Dig and Settle In

Released on console April 16, 2019Reviewed on Xbox One XAlso on PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo SwitchDeveloper Pathea GamesPublisher Team17Price at launch $29.99 USD (PS4, Xbox One), $39.99 USD (Switch)

My Time at Portia came to PC in January 2019 and reached home consoles three months later, bringing its crafting simulation to the couch. For players who had waited for a new game in this genre, it delivers.

Rebuilding Portia

Portia is a small town in a post-apocalyptic world, and the player is its newest Builder, tasked with restoring major infrastructure and expanding a Workshop while competing with rival Builders for the town’s respect. On the surface it is a crafting and resource management sim. In practice it is closer to a life sim, with so much else to do that whole days slip by fishing, planting crops, exploring dungeons or giving gifts to friends.

It is a game about community and belonging, and it has a lot of heart. The nominal goal is to become the best Builder by completing commissions posted daily at the Commerce Guild. The big ones fix real problems in town and usually open something new: a bridge to an island with a creepy cave, cleaning up the polluted town fountain, repairing a lift to reach a new area, or saving the Tree Farm from its bat and water troubles, which unlocks new shops.

The Workshop

The Workshop is the centre of everything. Crafting machines turn raw materials into plates, bars, hardware and other parts, and the Assembly Station combines them into commissioned builds: bridges, water wheels, furnaces, even music players. Blueprints come from the Handbook left by the player’s father, and more are unlocked through Data Discs found in the ruins.

The Workshop starts small, and expanding it to late-game operations such as a stable, barn and factory takes time and serious money. Once expanded, there is room to lay out the operation in any way.

Days rarely run out of work. Beyond story commissions, residents constantly order items, which earn Gols (the local currency) and improve relationships with dozens of townspeople. Planning can become overwhelming: a commission may need a new machine to make its parts, and that machine may need a blueprint not yet found.

Ruins and Data Discs

The Abandoned Ruins and the more dangerous Hazardous Ruins (the old sewage plant) hold Old World components needed for advanced machinery. Rather than mining specific rocks, players dig through large open caves with a pickaxe and a Relic Detector that points towards valuable items.

Data Discs are the most important find. Several vendors want them, but their key use is at the Research Center, where Petra decodes them into new blueprints. The results are random, so a needed blueprint, even one blocking a main commission, can take days to arrive. The Handbook at least lists every material and which machine makes it.

That sounds tedious, and sometimes it is, but it is also part of the charm. The system ties together a dozen tools and dozens of raw materials, and what once looked impossible, such as building the first Dee-Dee Transport, later becomes routine work finished before sunset over the new Portia Harbor.

Freedom to play any way

The game allows almost any approach. Ignore the main story and commissions entirely, and the Workshop rating simply stays low. Focus on ruin diving and artefacts for the Museum. Become a fisher who cooks and sells the catch. Run a farm with a barn, a coop and planters fed by an irrigation system. Very few quests or events run against the clock, so everything happens at the player’s pace. Few games in the genre offer this much freedom.

Relationships and festivals

Every completed commission improves the relationship with whoever ordered it. Time off can go into socialising, dates and eventually marriage, once a friendship has grown past the Associate and Buddy stages. Players who focus on crafting first will need to put in some social effort.

Each season brings an event: fishing, martial arts, a ghost hunt, a horse race. They are among the best moments in the game, making the player feel part of the community socially as well as economically, and high placings earn medals to exchange for outfits and decorations. The game is unclear about how to register, though. Some events need registration in advance, and it is easy to miss one without knowing.

Rough edges

The console version has some glitches, mostly concentrated in the Hazardous Ruins: invisible walls, and occasionally an enemy stuck behind a wall that has to be killed to progress, forcing a dungeon reload. Sound sometimes drops out entirely, and several boss fights play in complete silence, which breaks the immersion. None of this seriously holds the game back. Multiplayer, which Pathea had not confirmed at the time, is the one addition that would clearly improve it.

The verdict

My Time at Portia succeeds because of choice. Where other life sims slide into a repetitive daily routine, Portia always feels organic. Even with every major commission complete, there is reason to keep going: rebuilding the Workshop for a new venture, or starting a cow and chicken farm to supply a bakery. After more than 60 hours it remains one of the best games of its kind for anyone who wants to settle into a small sim life at their own pace.

Questions readers ask

What is My Time at Portia about?

The player is a new Builder in the post-apocalyptic town of Portia, taking commissions to rebuild its infrastructure and improve their Workshop, while farming, fishing, exploring ruins and building relationships.

How do you get new blueprints in My Time at Portia?

Some come from the Handbook as the game progresses. Others come from Data Discs found in the ruins, which Petra at the Research Center decodes into blueprints at random.

Does My Time at Portia have multiplayer?

Not at its 2019 console launch. My Time at Portia is single-player.