With the long-awaited sequel to My Time at Portia finally hitting Early Access, fans everywhere have gotten to know the residents of My Time at Sandrock for themselves. My Time at Sandrock takes the unique genre mixing of life-sim, RPG, farming sim, and more, refines it, and adds numerous quality of life changes.
Returning players will be aware that the original game and this one as well actually take place in a post-apocalyptic world, lending some surprising depth to its quirkiness. The setting does allow the game to have more interesting aspects like mechanical monsters in an old west-style town but doesn't explain all the odd aspects the game throws at you.
10 Why Is Your Character So Strong?
Unless all these items your builder can craft like furnaces and furniture are weightless thanks to the semi-futuristic tech still available, it’s a bit odd to see your character just running around with these heavy items above their head.
The game has a heavy focus on realism concerning things like stamina, relationships with the NPCs, and daily tasks, but doesn’t give a single explanation for your builder’s superhuman strength. Are people just crazy strong after the apocalypse? Is it a society of superhumans? We’ll never know for sure.
9 Why Does Everything Run On Water In A Desert Town?
Sandrock was built upon the ruins of an old metropolis from before the apocalypse. While this does give context to why they would build a city in the middle of the desert, why have everything important rely on water?
The only two things not in plentiful supply in a desert are trees and water, which are also two of the most needed resources in the game. The game informs you that trees and water are sparse, so why hasn’t anyone come up with an alternative energy solution?
8 Why Do People Blame You For Missing Commissions?
Commissions are requests placed by townsfolk that your builder can fulfill in order to earn rewards and improve relationships. While this is standard fare for a life sim game, you have the responsibility of checking the commission board every day if you don’t want to miss anything.
Some commissions only have a 24-hour window so if you forget to check or don’t have time because you’re finishing something up or exploring the world and you run out of time, the resident who made the commission will get mad at you, and you will lose relationship points. For not doing volunteer work. That they didn’t directly tell you about. Sigh.
7 Why Didn’t The Job Come With A Paycheck?
The previous builder of Sandrock, a familiar face from the previous entry in the series, is retiring. In response, the city is able to hire two new builders to take his place. However, there isn’t any mention of a paycheck—instead, your main source of income is fulfilling job commissions.
While that’s fine, how did they expect you to survive there without an income? My Time at Sandrock may be a life sim but not getting paid properly for a job you went to school for is a little too realistic.
6 Why Can’t You Stay Conscious After 3AM?
If you’ve ever stayed up late playing video games, you can probably attest to just passing out at a certain point and waking up in the morning in a daze. However, if you knew you would stay up you’d take a nap earlier in the day or imbibe caffeinated drinks in order to stay awake longer.
In My Time At Sandrock, your character just hits the deck at 3 AM. No fanfare, nothing to do about it. If you're a new player and you're unlucky enough to put something off until late and it hits 3 AM, there's just nothing you can do. You wake up in the morning with some bags under your eyes and go back to business like nothing happened.
5 Why Doesn’t Sprinting Or Jumping Cost Stamina?
Once you’ve exhausted your stamina for the day, you can no longer perform any actions that require stamina, such as mining. What you can do, however, is run and jump to your heart’s content until the time reaches 3 AM or you go to sleep. You can exhaust your stamina pretty early so why can’t you passively regain any stamina?
Why does your character have an infinite amount of stamina but only when doing certain actions? Clearly, this is an occurrence of gameplay not reflecting the story, but it’s still an interesting question that would benefit from an in-universe explanation.
4 Why Are So Many People Willing To Spar?
When speaking to the residents of the town, many of them have two options that you can choose: playing cards or sparring. Considering the fact that monsters roam the land it isn’t particularly surprising that many people would have some form of weapons training, but why are they all willing to fight with a stranger?
On top of that, the weapons they use to fight are stones, which should deal some serious damage. The combat is simple but fun and this most likely exists as a means to allow you to train in a safe environment, but the in-universe ramifications are both hilarious and confusing.
3 Why Are The Weapons So Large?
Another aspect where there is a weird disconnect between gameplay and the world: the weapons are comically huge. While the characters have fairly normal proportions, the weapon models look like they would be right at home in a game like Monster Hunter.
The blades are comically large and thicker than most characters’ forearms, yet your builder swings every weapon around with ease. Perhaps they’re so huge because the monsters are also huge? Whatever the case is, these weapons are big enough to even make Cloud Strife wonder what their purpose is.
2 Why Do You Have Almost No Blueprints To Start?
As a builder fresh out of the academy, you arrive in the town of Sandrock with… nothing. You’re entirely reliant on the previous builder to have any tools, blueprints, shelter, everything. Why is that? Shouldn’t you have your own set of tools?
Shouldn’t whatever school you went to teach you some of the bare necessities needed to be qualified for a job like this? You showed up with nothing but the clothes on your back and a flier. Nice sentiment, but you won’t be saving an entire town from economic collapse with hopes and dreams.
1 Why Did The Previous Builder Leave You Almost Nothing?
As stated almost immediately, the previous builder is retiring. He’s left you his place, which is a one-room shack on the edge of town, and a workbench. Nothing else. Why is he taking all his tools with him into retirement? All his blueprints? Why does it seem like he’s setting you up to fail?
No payment, no tools, no plans, nothing. If he was trying to sabotage you, he did a pretty good job, honestly. Even though it seems everything and everyone is hindering you in some way, intentional or not, you still have a job to do, and it’s a ton of fun to do it.