It is currently Early Access but the reviews are outstanding = 92% positive right now on 4,000 reviews. Updates are frequent and I have not encountered a single bug in 15 hours of play.
This has been mentioned on the indie thread but it probably deserves its own thread. My Time at Portia (MTaP) is another take on the Harvest Moon genre, this time concentrated more on detailed crafting than farming. The setting is a bit odd in that the world is post-apocalyptic but green, sunny and charming. The music and voices are appropriately upbeat. Civilisation is back to a largely agrarian economy and you are placed in the role of a builder. Your father left a ramshackle house and it is up to you to improve the community, your lot in life and I suppose you can guess the rest of it. You chop trees, mine, build, farm, fish and the like. It has the same talk/gift relationship system as Stardew Valley as well.
The differences in game play are considerable however. This is played from an over-the-shoulder 3rd person perspective so you are far closer to the world. The graphics are cartoon-ish and colorful but much more modern than Stardew. This game is focused more on building and crafting than farming and the recipes are far more detailed. For instance, early in the game I was asked to make a “dee-dee” (think of a 3 wheeled golf cart). This recipe required:
1 Small Engine (acquired by exploring the mines)
3 Rubber Tyres (rubber from a tree, 2 bronze bars made by smelting copper and tin)
5 Copper Bars (easy)
2 Single Seats (wood made into planks + 1 leather which is made from 2 plant fibers and 2 furs, where fiber is picked and furs from slain multi-colored goats)
6 Fiber Cloth (2 worn furs and 2 plant fibers each)
5 Glass (made from sand)
It took no fewer than 3 different crafting stations to make these items before I could put them together. That is a relatively simple recipe. Most of your missions come from a community request board where you can choose what you want to make from a few selections. Or you can just do your own thing. Of course you enhance your stations, expand your plot of land, continue to delve into deeper and more dangerous areas, make more complex stuff, beautify your house and get to know the natives. I have no idea if there is an endgame but frankly I do not really care as this appears to be the next Stardew Valley-type hit.
Just got started, but first impression is positive. It seems pretty polished for an Early Access product, and having glanced ahead in the workbook, the recipes seem to get pretty complex. Really looking forward to getting deeper.
I love this game. Fair warning, it currently uses redshell. (I personally think the redshell hysteria is just that…but it may be a deal-breaker for some of y’all.)
Throughout early access, the developers have been constantly adding and iterating on the game.
I am not sure there is any more strategy in Stardew. I feel I am making the same kinds of decisions that I made in that game - what to build, what to farm, if I mine/fish/socialize that day, etc. What I do not have is the time sink of having to water plants, hoe and plant each day that I do in Stardew (all activities I enjoyed). Thus on some days in Portia I kind of wonder what I want to do that day rather than having them a bit more jam-packed.
There are only a couple of parts of the game that I do not really enjoy. I do not like the combat all that much and I am not good at it. Boss monsters 5 levels below me will kill me with ease and I downloaded a trainer so I can progress the story. I am playing to relax, not to play a cartoony version of dark souls. I do not like the planting boxes much and wish I could just farm. The mini-games (dating, roping, fishing) are not of my liking. I really do not understand the fishing one, the roping one is exceptionally picky with no visual clues to help the players and the dating ones are poorly done. Finally the relationship progress is far too slow.
But these things can and likely will be tweaked. Otherwise the game is great, especially for a $13 product (which is what I paid for it on sale).
Honestly my biggest problem with it is the lack of real story. The people I met on the first day still say the same thing to me pretty much every time I talk to them, which I do a lot because it boosts relationship with them.
I feel like that’s where Stardew shines, it feels like there’s a novel in that game. In this one there’s hardly a short story.
I like the character design. It is very charming. Each day you wake up and run to your routine. At first it was somewhat relaxed but after a while I try to squeeze every bit of time until I pass out at 3 am, or I run out of stamina.
I wake up and jump over a medical bed, a fluffy pink couch and a washing machine. They are relics from the Old Age before the Dark. They give me higher health, attack, stamina.
I run around the side to my chickens and feed them cactus fruits because that’s the only one I know with no other use. I’m a big hoarder.
I run to feed my horsie. He gets rice from the store.
I get to my dozen industrial machines (I have been playing a while) and feed in New inputs to whatever is running low.
Then I go to town and get daily contracts and say hi to anyone I meet for the +1 relationship meter. Sometimes I have specific gifts that that person likes so I give them that. I buy one rose a day because that’s a +10 to everyone I’ve tried so far. Tbf the social grind is a bit difficult as someone mentioned above
By now it’s 10 am or so, so I decide what I will do the rest of the day. I can go mining, or cut down wood, or hit a dungeon. Each little system I’ve mentioned is a mission introduced in rpg style over time.
It is a relaxing game, but also I try to min max my time and profit margins. It’s very harvest moon.
