My Time At Portia

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My Time At Portia
Studio Pathea Games
Publisher Team17
Senior Developer Zhi Xu
composer Claude Ruelle
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 15th January 2019
platform Microsoft Windows , Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , Xbox One
Game engine Unity
genre RPG , building game , Life Simulation
medium Download
language Chinese, English
Age rating
PEGI recommended for ages 7 and up

My Time At Portia (in German about My Time in Portia ) is a computer game from the US-Chinese developer studio Pathea Games. The game that combines elements of role-playing game , building game and life simulation combined, was founded in January 2019 by the British publisher Team17 released.

action

The player takes on the role of a young man or woman who arrives by boat in the unfamiliar coastal town of Portia. Portia is a city-state on the coast of the Western Ocean, the design of which combines fantasy elements, medieval guilds and modern technology into a whole similar to the steampunk genre. The city is a member of the “Alliance of Free Cities”. His missing father gave the player a small house just outside the city as well as some equipment for the production of handicrafts. He settles in Portia and tries to make money by trading and doing handicrafts. In the course of the game it becomes clear that My Time At Portia is set in a post-apocalyptic time approx. 300 years after an unspecified catastrophe, which manifests itself in the ruins of a technically higher past. Two factions in Portia, between which the player has to choose, deal differently with the legacy of the unknown forefathers: While scientists are exploring the ruins and want to make the ancient technology hidden in them usable for the benefit of the people, members of the church “Church of Light ”(in German about Church of Light ) wipe out all traces of ancient civilization in order to prevent another catastrophe. At the end of the game, the player's father shows up in Portia for a discussion with his child.

Game principle and technology

My Time At Portia takes place in an open world , which means that a large part of the game world is open to the player from the start and can be explored by the player. The three-dimensional, colorful comic-style environment is shown from a third-person perspective ; the imaginary camera is positioned behind the character and follows its movements. The player can move freely through the environment with the help of the keyboard or the gamepad . He finds handicraft materials that can be collected or dismantled throughout the game world. The materials can be combined into objects, sometimes also into devices, which in turn enable the manufacture of new objects. The player can continue to cultivate a farm and farm and raise cattle there. In the city he can turn his manufactured or grown goods into money and invest this in the further expansion of his business. The social aspect has an important part in the daily life of the player in Portia: the character gets to know the inhabitants of the city, learns details about their lives and the connections to other inhabitants and does tasks for them; If the character's relationship with another person develops very positively, a family can be started with him. By carrying out orders for the mayor of the city, the player changes the game world himself by further developing its infrastructure. The role-playing part of My Time At Portia also manifests itself in battles that the player has to endure in various dungeons against computer opponents.

Technically based My Time At Portia on the Unity - Engine .

Production notes

The production of My Time At Portia began in 2016. The game was largely developed by the Chinese branch of the Pathea Games development studio in Chongqing . The lead designer Zhi Xu had previously been responsible for the 2016 open-world role-playing game Planet Explorers . The employees of the branch in Memphis , USA were only involved in the creation of the script. In June 2017, Pathea Games released an early ("alpha") version of the game for free download on the Steam distribution platform . In September 2017, Pathea Games launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter platform to raise additional money to fund the game. The four-week campaign was supposed to bring in $ 100,000 and was successful; in the end, backers raised nearly $ 150,000 to produce the game. A publication was announced for January 2018. During the campaign, a sales partner was found in the British developer studio and publisher Team17.

Instead of using a specialized agency to engage the speakers for the voice recordings, Pathea organized the voice recordings themselves via the Internet. As a result, several speakers complained about poor communication and lack of payment from the studio.

In January 2018, the publisher Team17 released an unfinished, but paid version of the game as part of the Early Access program of the Steam distribution platform. As a result, the game generated revenue while the production process was still ongoing, while player feedback flowed into the process. In January 2019, one year after the start of the Early Access program, the game was officially released, initially only for PCs with the Windows operating system via Steam. Versions for Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 and Xbox One followed in April 2019.

reception

reviews
publication Rating
4players 80
GameStar 80
JeuxVideo 16/20
Meta-ratings
Metacritic 72

My Time At Portia received mixed to fairly positive reviews. The review database Metacritic aggregates 25 reviews to a mean value of 72. The German game magazine GameStar drew comparisons to the game Stardew Valley published in 2016 . Reviewer Elena Schulz pointed out that the main plot is staged with little twist and is child-friendly, whereas the building and economic system is complex and diverse. The magazine criticized repetitive collecting tasks and poorly translated German subtitles. All in all, the game is undemanding for experienced players, but offers a "pleasant, almost meditative flow of the game (...) for a few cozy evenings", and because of its size for a longer period of time. The German-language online magazine 4Players also drew comparisons to Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon , but showed that My Time At Portia focuses less on repetitive field work and more on building and exploring. 4Players praised a lively and believable game world, but criticized the sometimes complicated controls and an undemanding combat system. All in all, it noted a “wonderfully relaxed adventure mood”. The British daily The Guardian highlighted the conflict between the scientists and the Church in Portia as interesting for the player and praised the graphic style of the game as “a beautiful world full of graceful colors and bold brushstrokes”, but saw deficits in the script as the plot changed Develops very slowly and is also slowed down by long waiting times during product manufacture. The newspaper analyzed that My Time At Portia was perfecting the game principle of life simulations in many ways. The upgrading of one's own house is not only decorative, but has an impact on the game, inventory management can serve as a good example for comparable games, and the player's relationship with a person also influences the relationship with their social network. Many of these mechanisms have to be found out by the player himself, since the game is difficult with instructions.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pathea.net: Coming Soon: A new ride, a new weapon, and achievements! Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  2. ↑ SteamCommunity.com: My Time At Portia Alpha 1.0 Live! Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Kickstarter.com: My Time at Portia - An Enchanting Sandbox Simulation RPG. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  4. ↑ MCVUK.com: Team17 signs first Chinese-developed title, My Time at Portia. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  5. ↑ RockPaperShotgun.com: My Time At Portia devs apologize, claim voice actors will soon be paid. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Team17.com: My Time At Portia Available Now On Steam Early Access. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b 4Players.de: Test: My Time at Portia. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  8. ↑ a b Gamestar.de: My Time at Portia in the test - Fallout for the whole family. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  9. ↑ JeuxVideo.com: My Time at Portia: un contenu imposant et des mécaniques de jeux variées. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  10. ↑ a b Metacritic.com: My Time At Portia. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .
  11. ↑ TheGuardian.com: My Time at Portia review - crafting sim reaps slow but sweet rewards. Retrieved January 27, 2019 .