My Time at Portia

My Time At Portia is slow. Achingly slow at times. So slow, in fact, that it sometimes feels like it should be an idle game and I have to fight the urge to tab away and check back later. The game is a sandboxy life sim in the mould of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing. It sees you take over your dad’s dilapidated workshop and attempt to restore it to prosperity, one commission at a time. 

So far so familiar. But My Time At Portia oscillates between being just enough of an engaging take on a comforting genre to draw you in, and an infuriating me-too whose glacial pace steals more of your time than it deserves.

After the usual tutorial-type gubbins, the first significant commission you receive from the mayor is for a bridge to connect Portia to Amber Island; a little spit of land near your workshop. You’ll need 2 Wooden Bridge Heads (basically the on and off ramps for the bridge) and 1 Wooden Bridge Body. You can construct one segment at a time using a crafting platform called the Assembly Station.

But the Bridge Heads need 3 copper pipes and 5 hardwood planks each. Hardwood comes from the big trees nearby, but the axe you crafted for the tutorial isn’t strong enough so you must smelt copper and tin (obtained via mining trips to the abandoned ruins or hacking away at stones) to make bronze bars and buy an expensive (for this stage in the game) upgrade kit from a local store. You now have the ability to get hardwood!

But you need hardwood planks not hardwood, so you’ll need a cutter. Cutters need 2 copper blades and 5 stone bricks. You go back to the furnace to make the bricks, but the copper blades come from a grinder, and a grinder requires 2 old parts, 3 copper bars and 2 grinding stones. So it’s back to the ruins for old parts, copper ore and stone, then to the furnace and worktable to refine some of the materials into a usable format. Don’t forget you’ll need extra copper ore to refine into the copper bars which can then be ground to form the copper pipes. Oh, and you have to fuel the furnace and the grinder so you’ll need a whole lot of wood (as distinct from hardwood) and power stones (from the ruins). 

After this, the Bridge Body is relatively straightforward, although still a slog in terms of the time and energy it takes to actually craft everything. Obtaining each of these parts teaches you how the game’s production loops work, but calling it one mission instead of about eight separate missions is the problem. It means spending hours and hours in the early game, chipping away at a monumental task without a drip feed of encouragement.

Outside the crafting missions and commissions, the systems are a mixed bag. The fighting is dull - slash, slash, slash, dodge roll is pretty much all you need. The villagers aren’t very engaging, so I have no desire to cultivate friendships or romances. The farming is… fine? Seasonal celebrations are fun but involve minigames of variable quality. And the home decor and fashion are too tied to stats boosts for a decorative approach to really work. 

By being so slow, My Time At Portia both repels and appeals. It offers a kind of gaming oasis, making few demands and just pootling along. That type of thing can be a place of respite for the right player or the right mood. But when I wasn’t in the right mood progress felt artificially slow - like it was being throttled by resource requirements, forcing you to play longer than feels good. 

To give you a sense of this, I’ve put about 40 hours into my save and I think I’m less than a third of the way through the main questline. I’ve spent some of that time completing secondary quests, taking on workshop commissions and so on. For the right player, that will feel like phenomenal value for money. For everyone else I suspect the busywork will eventually prove too much of a bore to stick with it.

My Time at Portia - Lauren_Team17
Hi there!

We’ve just released a patch to fix a few bugs and issues. You can read the see the full changelist below!

If you have encountered an issue or think you have found a bug, please let us know in the Report A Problem forum here on Steam.

Thanks!

Changelist:
  • Fixed the bug that Arlo would continue to follow the player during the "Training for the Flying Pigs" quest.
  • Fixed the bug where Tody, Martha and Higgins might stand outside the Commerce Guild door after the fireside meeting.
  • Fixed the bug causing Gust to repeat the same dialogue after you marry him.
  • Fixed the bug preventing the lock frames option from working.
  • Fixed the crash when pressing the left and right mouse buttons at the same time when holding an item.
  • Fixed the bug where players cannot interact with the food on the table during the Autumn Festival.
  • Fixed the bug where players will stand on their mount when interacting with the pan during the Autumn Festival.
  • Fixed the bug where items could be duplicated.
  • Fixed the content error when giving NPCs their favourite gifts.
My Time at Portia - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alyse Stanley)

It s hard to keep your eyes off the horizon in My Time At Portia. Its valleys live in the jagged shadow of broken high-rises, buildings draped with moss and towering factories splitting apart at the seams. I needed to concentrate on the group of adorable pastel coloured llamas ahead. My presence didn t interrupt their frolicking for a second, but I wished they d at least try to maul me a little bit; it would make what I was about to do feel less icky. With tennis racket in hand (it was stronger than my wooden sword) I slaughtered them all, collecting what bits and bobs remained to craft a hoodie in a lovely shade of blue. One commission down, and what felt like a million more to go.

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My Time at Portia - Lauren_Team17
Hi there!

We've uploaded a small patch to fix a few bugs, here's the changelist!

Changelist:
  • Adjusted the difficulty of fishing.
  • Fixed the bug preventing some players from hiring Ack.
  • Fixed the bug that when there's no fireside meeting, people will still gather around.
  • Fixed the bug causing an error to show when replaying a cut scene in the photo album.

Please continue to report bugs, or any other issues you encounter, in the Report A Problem forum here on Steam.

Thank you!
My Time at Portia - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Matt Cox)

Judging by the Steam charts, players have been enjoying their time with My Time At Portia. The same can’t be said for the voice actors, who have spent the past year dealing with poor communication and inconsistent payments by devs Pathea Games. Yesterday Pathea acknowledged their mishandling of the situation, claimed they were currently in the process of ensuring everyone was properly paid, and promised to do better in the future.

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My Time at Portia

My Time At Portia left Early Access this week, working its way up the Steam charts and netting some pretty positive reviews—keep an eye out for our take on the game soon—but shortly after launch, voice actors not associated with the game and Twitter users started criticising developer Pathea Games, alleging poor treatment of voice actors and issues with payments.

The allegations go back to October, when post appeared on Steam, from a third party, listing complaints that the OP claimed came from the voice actors themselves. The list includes originally asking the voice actors to work for free, missed payments, and poor communication.

Pathea responded in the thread in October, acknowledging that it paid voice actors $50-$100 and there had been some miscommunication, but the developer disputed that payments were ever missed. It also said that voice actors had agreed to be paid more retroactively, and that everyone had already been paid the amount originally agreed. 

The thread was closed soon after, following Pathea saying it would reach out to voice actors to clear up any confusion and address any concerns they had. In light of the recent accusations on Twitter, Pathea’s released another statement, clarifying the situation and admitting that there was actually an oversight and payments were missed.

A longer post was also published on Steam. 

“We are still an inexperienced and ambitious studio, and did not have a solid structure in place to maintain adequate links to our actors and maintenance thereof,” reads the post. “This caused several issues. It started from volunteer work, to paid work, then to contracted work. From 11 voice actors to 60+.”

It looks like the issues stem from actors submitting lines but not being credited or the lines not being implemented, leading to them not getting paid for their work. 

“Over this last weekend, we have been addressing this as best as we can. We sent out payments to all actors whether we had implemented their lines or not, but this still left some people not receiving pay, due to that 'credit'. After interacting with a few of those in question, it was made clear that this just wasn't fair. We removed that credit/deduction, and are currently in the process of getting out the payments as due.”

More voice acting is being added to the game even now, and Pathea says its main priority now is making sure voice actors got what they were expecting rather than what the developer had in mind. 

“We appreciate all the voice actors that have supported and helped better our system, and My Time at Portia,” the post concludes. “They have given us patience, advice, suggestions, tips, and encouragement, when they were obligated to do none of those, and we will continue to return that appreciation the best we can.”

My Time at Portia - AaronDeng
Hello!

In today’s patch we have added several new features including side quests, and UI and audio adjustments, as well as fixing a number of bugs and addressing issues that have been reported by the community.

Please continue to report bugs and any issues you encounter in the Report A Problem forum.

Thanks!

Changelist
Added
  • Add some environmental sounds – bugs buzzing sound in caves, birds chirping, and wind sounds.
  • Add some character voices - female player voice 2, male player voice 3, Arlo, Lucy, and Albert.
  • Add audio for mobs yell and llama footsteps.
  • Added quest after marrying Gust - Family Dinner with Gust.
  • Added quest after marrying Arlo - Exploring with Arlo.
  • Added quest after marrying Emily - Dinner at Sophie's.
  • Added quest after marrying Mint - Under the Sun.
  • Added interactions with babies.
  • Added a new cutscene where Django talks about the Mystery Knight. This can be triggered before the quest to find the third key after the Council meeting.
  • Added the display of material sources in the workshop handbook diagrams.
  • Added a new step that the player needs to go inside the factory to activate the Assembly Station podium.
  • Added the ability to take photos with town folks on the Day of the Bright Sun.
  • Added a new key binding option - the mouse side button can now be assigned.
  • Added an on/off option for highlights. The default setting is off.
  • Added a new feature - time is paused when taking photos.
  • Added a new feature that your friend/spouse can gain some mood when player accomplish hazardous ruins' challenge with them during playing/dating.
  • Added more displays in the Portia Museum.
  • Added more dialogue for NPCs.
  • Added a new feature that remaining Gols are displayed when playing slots.
  • Added a new feature that NPCs might come to the player's home and send gifts on the player's birthday.
  • Added photos of Bikini Flippers and Huge Snaillob to the photo album.

Adjusted
  • Cancelled the chat option in the NPC's interaction bubbles during The Final Battle.
  • Set fixed places for mounts to stay when the player is in combat during storyline missions. Example: Your horse will not follow you into battle during these missions.
  • Optimised the graphics speed when playing the cutscene of the Final Battle.
  • Shrunk the area of the Martial Arts Tournament entrance so the player has less chance of being shut out.
  • Adjusted the number of birthday gifts the player can have, to 25.
  • Adjusted the UI icons of the seasons and weather.
  • Adjusted that the player will gain the diagram for the Triple Barrel Snakebite after the story of the Rat King.
  • Adjusted the behaviour of babies after getting milk powder and toys.
  • Adjusted that Arlo's quest ‘A Strong Man's Adventure’ needs to be triggered after building the Portia Bridge.
  • Lowered the price of some fish to match the difficulty of catching them.
  • Revised the description of the Rogue Knight's sword requiring LV70 to pick up.
Fixes
  • Fixed the problem that female player's ponytail cannot be dyed black.
  • Fixed the problem that the female player's face doesn't display normally when in a cutscene.
  • Fixed some art and collision problems.
  • Fixed the problem that NPC's cannot be hurt during sparring.
  • Fixed the problem that face make-up glows at night.
  • Fixed the problem that the table is recycled repeatedly.
  • Fixed the problem where Dawa will attempt to go to the desert before building the Portia Bridge.
  • Fixed the problem that Sophie was stuck in her home during the Final Battle.
  • Fixed the problem where Aadit sleeps in the wrong place in bed.
  • Fixed the problem that Gust may be stuck inside A&G Construction Company.
  • Fixed the animation, tools in hand and VFX problem of the workers.
  • Fixed the animation problem when larger characters are fishing.
  • Fixed the problem with seats being invisible inside Happy Apartments.
  • Fixed the overlap problem of Merlin.
  • Fixed the collision and location problem of Pumpkin Room.
  • Fixed the possibility that the player could get stuck in the seat in Gust's room.
  • Fixed the problem that some mob spawn points did not spawn mobs.
  • Fixed the problem that changing the game time speed leads to more gifts being dropped on the airship during the Day of the Bright Sun.
  • Fixed the problem that the table cannot be recycled if player has placed it incorrectly.
  • Fixed the problem where NPCs may not sit around the table when attending the player's birthday party.
  • Fixed the problem where the player can see the names of Pinky, Scraps and QQ before having enough hearts.
  • Fixed the problem that some NPCs can't be hit during the Snowball Fight.
  • Fixed the problem that the player doesn't get the rewards from the Portia Museum for collecting fish.
  • Fixed the problem that the photo in Sam's home is bigger than the photo frame.
  • Fixed the collision problem of the Civil Cutter.
  • Fixed the light problems of some of the item preview pictures.
  • Fixed the suspended items and floor clipping in the Western Plateau.
  • Fixed the problem that the Rat King circles when being attacked.
  • Fixed the problem where the player cannot get rewards on the Day of Memories.
  • Fixed the problem that players cannot unlock the achievement when being 1st in the Day of Memories game.
  • Fixed the problem that players cannot unlock the achievement when getting 3 swords in Slots.
  • Fixed the bug where the player is unable to exit the dangerous ruins between 23:59 - 00:00.
  • Fixed the bug that Aadit and Dawa sleep in a same bed.
  • Fixed the bug that Gale gives the player money without having married Ginger.
  • Fixed the missing icons on the social tab.
  • Fixed the bug that the quantities of food taken from the banquet table are incorrect.
  • Fixed the bug where NPCs follow the player onto the Martial Arts Tournament stage.
  • Fixed the bug affecting the pose of some NPCs when taking a family photo.
  • Fixed failing loading saves which used the calendar reminder feature.
  • Fixed the problem where Gust or Ginger will transport to another place after chatting with them during the Snowball Fight.

My Time at Portia - Lauren_Team17


To celebrate the PC launch of My Time At Portia, we’re giving away a CORSAIR mouse & mousepad and a Steam key for the game!

3 runners-up will get a Steam key for the soundtrack too!

To be in with a chance of winning, you can ENTER HERE.


Closes at 23:59 GMT Tuesday 29th January 2019. Terms & conditions apply, see Gleam page for details.
Grand Theft Auto V Legacy - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

Don’t be scared. It’s OK. I’ve got you. Hold my hand. Tighter. Come on. We can do this together. You and me. Lets… Steam Chart.

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My Time at Portia - AaronDeng
Hello!

We've fixed a lot of issues based on the bug reports we've received from our players - including the bug preventing you from getting any missions relating to the tree farm.

We really appreciate our players letting us know when they encounter issues, so we can get them fixed quickly! Please continue to report any bugs, issues or crashes in the Report a Problem forum.


Changelist:
  • Fixed the bug causing no rewards to be given when you have collected all the king fish.
  • Research notes can be sold in game.
  • Fixed the bug preventing players from receiving missions for the tree farm.
  • Fixed the bug that missions after the Portia Bridge mission cannot be triggered.
  • Fixed the bug affecting the amount of materials needed for A&G Construction services.
  • Adjusted the time limit for the mission 'The Builder Bout'. If yours has expired, you will just need to reload the save and the mission will continue.
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