Early Access: My Time at Sandrock

Have you ever wanted to head out to the wild west and become a builder in the most inhospitable environment? Well, me neither, but I did it anyway! 

My Time at Sandrock, created by Pathea Games, is a follow-up to My Time at Portia, released in 2018. It takes place in the same wholesome post-apocalyptic world. Humans have had to restart civilization after almost destroying themselves through greed, technology, and warfare. 

A critical difference between Portia and Sandrock is that Portia is a beautiful and lush coastal town. In contrast, Sandrock is exactly that….sand and rock. And trust me when I say the sand literally gets everywhere. Where have I heard that before?

You are tasked as a new builder to the area with keeping Sandrock from becoming a literal ghost town. Water is in very short supply, so you band together with the townspeople to do what you can to make Sandrock a lively place to live again. I love the resource collection, the building, and the relationships you build with the people in town. You can take on commissions and do chores for different townsfolk to increase your status with them. Some townspeople are very polite and helpful, and others…not so much (I’m looking at you, Dr. Fang!). 

I enjoyed playing the first game, Portia, so much that I contributed to the crowdfunding on Kickstarter for Sandrock. I have played roughly 20 hours on the alpha and another 40 plus on the early access. Play a bunch and then start over and play a bunch again?? YES PLEASE! 

While many aspects are very similar to Portia, some items have been changed slightly. There was a minor form of gardening in Portia. You could build planter boxes and grow some basic plants and trees to harvest, but in Sandrock, there is full-fledged sand farming. Sand farming, you ask? Yeah, I had no idea either. To keep your plants and good soil from blowing away in a sandstorm (yep, that’s a thing), you build something called a straw grid. There are different varieties of plants you can farm. Water is so scarce, yet you have to have it to grow your plants and run your machinery. It makes you strategize what commissions are essential. 

Sandfishing is a thing. Yes, sandfish for sand carp. I did mention there is a lot of sand, right? Besides the copious amounts of sand, there are many fun things to do, like solving some mysteries, dungeon crawling, and fighting off some nasty creatures. I enjoy that it isn’t only a casual building/ farming game. The story is fun and engaging, and there are so many things to do to get the town and your little workshop running. 

Check out a bit of the gameplay and some of the combat below:

As this is early access, there are still many features being worked on and bugs that they have hotfixes for daily. Multi-player is going to be a thing in Sandrock. That’s exciting because this was not an option in Portia. I’m excited to see how that will play out. 

If you like games like Animal Crossing and StarDew Valley, I think you would definitely enjoy these games by Pathea. My Time at Sandrock is currently in Early Access and available only on Steam and Epic Games. Hopefully, as soon as it is fully released, it will be ported to consoles as well. You can find My Time at Portia on PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox, and GamePass.

What do you think? Is this a game that you might like to try out? Do you like Sand?