MY TIME AT SANDROCK

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Relaxing, cosy games. Just by reading these three words, some of you might've shuddered a little. Not because the concept is somewhat dreadful to its core, but likely because of the explosion of this genre in recent years! When the pallor of the plague in 2019 hit the globe and we all got stuck inside our four walls, gaming got a massive boost in popularity. And with it, all the 'little genres' suddenly found new, fertile ground to grow on, soaking up the attention and players' time like parched roots of a malnourished house plant! We all know it was also the time of ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS, hitting the starved masses like manna from the heavens.

Based on that revelation - and the staggering success of STARDEW VALLEY - more and more devs decided to dabble in life/farming sims. We got a verified deluge of them in every possible flavour! JRPG styled adventures into farming, horror farming, collectathons farming, you name it. The problem is, most of these games are very... samey. It's not even inherently their fault! It's the formula being what it is. Each life sim is, after all, a collection of small tasks and chores to file in front of the player to create busy work that slowly, bit by bit, lets them progress to unlock even more chores! This might sound tedious, even unappealing, but that always was the key selling point of the genre - the soft tingle of accomplishment when something is achieved, completed, wrapped up. Even better if that something is a stepping stone to unlock that next coveted thing! New activity! Fancy outfits! Furniture! A brand new tool to expand our digital world.

This, of course, means that making a unique life sim is a bit of a challenge. You can't really go too wild and out of the box of bits and bobs the genre requires to function. But you also need to have your own thing. Something special that makes your game stand out from the crowd. Pathea Games tried their hand with MY TIME AT PORTIA - the first game in their now blossoming series of games, set in a strangely colorful and cheerful post-apocalyptic world. The main gimmick? Being more of a handyman (or handywoman!) than a farmer. While most other life sim core focuses on growing crops or such, PORTIA was all about running a workshop and crafting fancy machines and knick-knacks. Running commissions, scavanging resources, mining for goodies. I tried by hand with the game and... It completely fell off in like half an hour. Some would say I didn't give it an honest try, but I am sorry - PORTIA felt extraordinarily clunky. Unpolished, raw, bland, and strangely rigid. It was not meant for me.

A well-churning factory... I mean workshop.

But MY TIME AT SANDROCK... Oh boy, let me tell you about how this sand-filled life sim consumed my life.

On a surface level, MY TIME AT SANDROCK is just more of the same. You are a builder. You run a workshop for a small town in trouble. You aid the locals in their troubles, make friends, build relationships as much as advanced machinery. But when PORTIA felt like dragging myself through a clunker with jagged edges and barely chugging along an ancient engine of greasy cogs and ill-maintained mechanisms, SANDROCK feels like a smooth ride in a polished sports car that purrs like a well-trained tiger.

Everything is just better. Sometimes to an awe-inspiring degree! Visuals? Crispier. Juicer. More vibrant with a style that seems to hit its own pace just the right way. Characters? Flavourful with lots of personalities, great voice acting, rich back stories, and long, fun quest chains. Mini-games? Plenty and varied. Seasonal events? Always a pleasure to enjoy. And the sheer number of things to do? Positively staggering. This feeling that there is always something to look for, to chase, to work toward, is always present. I am 30 hours in, and the quests keep on piling up! Commissions never run dry, the funds keep on coming, and the plans to expand my workshop just grow and grow with new possibilities! Maybe it IS time to install a coop and raise chickens? Maybe I need to do a few mining runs to upgrade my tools to the higher grade? Maybe I do need to take a day off to go on a few playdates with some nice folks!? I'll be honest - I can keep glazing every aspect of this game, and I will, but to still have so many things to do at 30 hours of gameplay...? It is quite a feat. And I barely even touched some mechanics, like cooking or farming.

Decorating your home is a game of its own, and a lovely addition for a life-sim addict.

But let me tell you about two core components of MY TIME AT SANDROCK that really sold me on this game, made me love it to no end. Resource management and The Vibe.

By now, I consider this game to be a peerless specimen when it comes to the implementation of quality-of-life solutions in resource management. I will be the first to admit I do not play a lot of life sims, so maybe what they are doing is standard nowadays, but still - it did blow my mind. Every storage box you have is 'connected' via the same interface - by renaming each box with a number, you can organize them in order. Proper buttons allow you to automatically sort them as well as refill them from your backpack, making organizing the vast quantity and variety of resources a buttery smooth experience.

Ever find yourself in a wild, running out of inventory space? Well, you can always buy a new space in your backpack wherever you are for your coins, meaning that frustration rarely comes to bite you. Commissions track not only the resources you have and need for their completion, but also the components you need to craft the bits and bobs you need in the end, helping you plan accordingly. In short, the entire system of operating the game is so well thought out, so slick, so perfectly designed, I never felt any hindrance, any snatch or hitch while playing. It is that good. Gah, even the special tools, when used just once, are just added to your quick wheel, and so you never have to worry about carrying a camera around to snap photos when needed! Splendid stuff.

And the second bit? The Vibe. See, this might be a contentious point, but for me, the soul of the experience in a genre like this lies exactly in the aesthetics. The Atmosphere, large and overcompassing, like a warm blanket in winter. Might give a little underhanded example, because the next game in the MY TIME AT... series, the EVERSHINE, absolutely holds zero appeal to me. And it's not because the game is going to be bad! Far from it, I am sure the devs will keep improving on the already stellar systems, making it an extremely robust life sim game with too many quests and activities to count upon! But... EVERSHINE feels too noblebright for me. The colors, the characters, the uniforms, all of it reminds me of like a generic starter town of any FINAL FANTASY game, and I am just not excited by that setting.

There is combat in the game, and while it is simple, it serves its purpose, looks fun, and the enemies are often quite funny!

Meanwhile, the humble, wild-west-coded frontier town of Sandrock has it all! The dunes of the desert, sparse foliage. Go-getter attitude of daring colonists, stubbornly persisting against sandstorms and scarce resources! The feeling that we are rebuilding a world post major cataclysm is ever-present and somehow elevates the peppy cheerfulness of the people to a different level. The framing matters, and here it works perfectly fine for me, making me feel the feelings I should feel during important moments as well as in all bits of time between. Like gasping at the destruction of important infrastructure. Or laughing at Bogan Jack - a feisty boxing kangaroo who wanna throw down.

And so we reach the end of this already way too long slab of text. If you got here, dear reader, I cherish your determination! There are many more things I could chat about. How cute are the pets, and how useful to your progress. Or how romance feels pretty darn good with fun characters for anyone's fancy. But ultimately, the best thing I can say is that since I got MY TIME AT SANDROCK from a friend last week, I just cannot put it down, playing every hour I can muster. My mind clouded with thoughts of mining, building, and raising my newly acquired chickens. I hope that you, too, can have this kind of intense fun with this game if you decide to pick it up - and if you're a life sim fan, I could not see why you wouldn't!