My Time at Sandrock manages to expand and improve upon its predecessor My Time at Portia in almost every way, and despite a few bugs and small qualms, it stands as one of the best life simulation games in years. Just like Portia, this new entry comes from developer Pathea Games and publisher Focus Entertainment, the latter of which has also helped release titles like Atomic Heart and Aliens Dark Descent. While there will be players who simply don’t care for the game’s fundamentally task-centric nature or wish for more complex combat, for fans of the genre My Time at Sandrock does almost everything right.
The general premise of Sandrock remains the same as Portia: the player assumes the role of a new builder who’s just moved to a small town to ideally help stimulate its dwindling economy. The two games are set in the same world and time period, but the environments and characters feel distinct from one another, and enough of the mechanics have changed that it feels like much more than a copy of the original. This is a game that is easy to sink hours into, with a huge main storyline, a slew of side quests, and a boundless sense of things to discover.
Related: My Time At Sandrock Preview: An Exciting Crafting Adventure
For those who played My Time at Portia, the city of Sandrock will sound familiar – it’s the city Portia is separated from by the Eufaula Desert, and is therefore a much hotter, drier environment. This climate fundamentally changes how a lot of the town works, making for a place all about conservation. Water is a precious resource, felling trees around the city is forbidden, and a big part of resource collection is through recycling. It also means a town full of people with brand-new attitudes towards the world’s shared lore of the Day of Calamity and The Church of the Light.
These differences make the new in-game world fun to learn about, and the town of Sandrock is deeply charming. It’s very Western-inspired, though mostly not to a fault; the more vast desert landscapes can feel bereft at times, but that’s arguably more the nature of the desert than a flaw in design. There’s a main street area scattered with businesses and a good variety of other nooks and crannies to discover over time, alongside the many other locations players will go outside the main city area for the sake of the story or resource collection.
2023-11-01 20:00:07
Original from screenrant.com
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