My Time At Sandrock Early Access Review

In 2019 there was a game released called My Time in Portia. It was a very addictive farm-life simulator and it received good reviews amongst the gaming community. Now it is 2022 and now Pathea Games have released a sequel to this fun game. My Time at Sandrock has been released on Steam Early Access and available on Epic Games as well. So below we shall look and see if the sequel can live up to the greatness of the first.

Developer: Pathea Games
Publisher: Pathea Games
Release Date: 26 May 2022

CPU: Intel Core i5 2.4 Ghz / AMD Equivalent
GPU: Geforce GTX 960, AMD Radeon HD 7970
RAM: 8 GB
HHD: 39 GB

Review code was provided.

Grab My Hammer!

My Time at Sandrock is not based on a farm like its predecessor. It is set in a desert environment and you are a young builder who have moved to a new town and get to take over a workshop. The goal of Sandrock is to make it more attractive to visitors and your job is to complete work for the town and help the good folk around the area. This time there is more focus on being environmentally friendly and this will influence the town folk attitude towards rebuilding the town.

To gather the materials that are needed to build the town you need to get them from recycled piles scattered around the area. If you go chopping trees down to get wood then this will be met with disgust and you get penalised for destroying the environment.  Another change from the Portia is the friendships that you build with the characters. You do quests to get a bond with your neighbours which gets stronger as you progress. Do commissions and you get gifts and get a chance of a relationship with them.

Get Ready to Fight

Combat is another area that has been improved in the sequel. Instead of being mundane in Sandrock you get the chance to use all tools that you got available. Also, now you have a new dodging system and new mechanics to break down defences of your opposition so that it doesn’t feel like randomly clicking of the mouse. While the game plays nice there are still some rough edges that need addressing. But keep in mind that this is in Early Access so that means that the game is still a work in progress. Loading times are slightly unoptimized. But these will be fixed no doubt before final release.

Graphics and Sounds

The graphics are colourful and cartoon style, which like the first one, makes the game standout. Also, the user interface has been kept consistent which means that picking up and playing is easy and familiar. There are also some minor issues with the translation text, but this is not major as when they pop up it is usually in a part where you can get a understanding of what going on. The music is very atmospheric and brings different styles depending on the time of day and what you are doing,

Final Thoughts

My Time at Sandrock is an Early Access game but now it is looking like that it can be better than Portia. Newbies to the game can pick up and play easily, while the veterans of My Time in Portia will also find enough to play the sequel. If you want to jump into Sandrock at the start then go to Steam or Epic and buy this fun game.