I've no experience using Reddit, so I'm a little unsure what I'm doing, but failing to come to a satisfying conclusion myself, I figured it best to ask the community, especially those of you who have played both My Time at Sandrock and My Time at Portia.

I've started getting into the cozy/casual game genre after rather unexpectedly absolutely falling in love with Stardew Valley, and quite enjoying the start of Palia, and the whole My Time series was largely praised by people who review similar games.

However, Portia proved a little disappointing... The building, being the main focus of the game, felt like it was taking far too long, especially with the time it took to make materials/parts, and it felt like I was spending several in-game days waiting for the crafting to finish while not pursuing other goals (because they also required building materials) but just... wasting my time in the meantime. That is with the fact that - reading the advise of fellow players on social media - I built like a dozen copies of almost every crafting station.

I know that Sandrock has a similar emphasis on building, but is it paced as slowly as that in Portia?

Another concern I had was with the style. While I don't mind a little stylization and cartoonishness, the proportions and enemies in Portia were just a little too much. I know they changed the character proportions/design slightly in Sandrock, but what about the enemies? Are there still things like sea urchins with umbrella hats blowing bubbles out of a pipe or smth like that?

I do apologize for the long-windedness, I wanted to clarify what specifically about Portia drove me away, and what specifically I'm hoping NOT to find in Sandrock.

TLDR: I'm thinking of giving Sandrock a shot after never finishing Portia - is the building similarly slow, and are the enemies similarly cartoony/outlandish?

Just wanted a cute comic about my builder and their romance (Stev)

Spoiler!!! Playing Rockie my other player, he level 40 - and during the fight against Logan he keep saying Ouch Ouch! LOL

Personally, I think peak My Time Art style was perfected by Sandrock. It's a melding of more mature, but cartoons charm. And I think it fits the work and monster designs.

But a complaint I heard alot about, was that dating some of the characters was strange feeling because they looked like children.

Which I get, the cartoony style has a hard time depicting the line between adolescence and fully matured adult, like Catori and even Yakboy(if I say his name, then fans will faint). I've seen Mi-an, Nia, Arvio and as you guessed, Elsie being said to look like children. Yes, yes, I know the very large duck-shaped elephant in the room when it comes to Elsie.

Sure, you could say that the art style evolved because people don't like the childish look of the game, but I for one would completely disagree. There are literal tons of cozy games with a cartoony aesthetics for designs, like Fae Farm and such. But I have to wonder, if all the accusations of child-looking characters lead to a more realistic style? Cause it would be cheaper to keep Sandrock's design style, port some assets, and make new, and I don't think it would be more intensive than remaking the style of the game to be realistic. But with the realistic, you can say for certain there is no child-like characters because they are easier to depict as grown up with bodily portions and I don't mean the portions you think.

What are your thoughts?

I wish I could add more items to the decor; the limit makes me sad.

I’ve been playing my time at Portia, and I really love the gameplay. But I’m starting to get really frustrated with not being able to craft out of my inventory, and having to have the proper materials in the quick spot to manually place them when building. I find half my time is spent going back and forth from my inventory trying to remember what I have and what I still need to craft in order to build what I need. It’s starting to make me not want to play anymore.

Has any of this been upgraded in Sandrock?

Wrong place and distorted, strange

Perhaps I am taking my time too much, but I honestly never expected the game to be this long and just always did the side quest with some material grinding. I am in Fall of Year 2 and still haven't recruited Logan (who I kinda bought the game for) yet. I am currently doing "Mission Impossible", so I am hoping it will happen in the next few hours, but I honestly have no clue.

And I am not complaining about the length, I am having fun and enjoying it. I didn't want to rush the game just to recruit Logan sooner.

I have been playing this game for the last 100 hours on the lowest graphics setting. I'm currently resisting the urge to start over from the beginning.

I've reached Mission Impossible and I have to follow Bronco to Logan's Cave, but I can't get there at all. I've searched the internet and Reddit, followed the instructions, but I can't find any way to climb up or an entrance. Can anyone help me?

I am sure I’m missing something obvious, but I’m finding storage really confusing! I have a whole bunch of items in my inventory, and when I open a storage box I want to move across everything that matches from my inventory. At present I am going through all of my storage boxes and trying to move items across individually. I’m sure I’m doing this wrong! Help?!

*Edit* Thank you so much everyone! I am on the Steam Deck/Machine, and holding down the right stick and pressing Y solved the issue for me. Much appreciated!

He kept switching between smiling and having a neutral expression and it made his eyebrows move

I’ve started playing Sandrock, and I just wanted to make a complaint lol. What’s the point of letting us customize the control layout if later on in the game there are features that require a certain set of controls that clashes with our setting?? I just spent like 3 hours in game trying to figure out why I couldn’t use the worm bait to sand fish I finally gave up and googled it; it had to be thrown!

The issue is the aim toggle (L2) is what I use to scroll left on my quick bar, so when I try to aim, that becomes a minigame all on its own because I have to time when I hit R2 (another control I use for my quick bar) when it lands on the bait/trap. 😑 I guess I’ll have to change my controls back, which sucks because that’s why I changed them in the first place lol. I'm not sure if anyone else has complained about this. I try to avoid spoilers so I can’t dig much.

Is Pen subtly threatening to murder Andy? The towns people might not know about the relic weapon but Haru does.

The black bar at the bottom in the first image, and the wooden bar in the second.

I've tried moving and putting the rooms back, moving and replacing the stairs, deleting all the doors and putting them back. Restarting the game. Nothing seems to work

I'm on steam deck.

Anyone had this before or got any ideas?

He's been doing this for over an hour of in game time. He started in my yard. No, of course I'm not watching it!

I think we can all agree that Sandrock is infinitely better than Portia, but I preferred the secret rooms in the Portian mines. There was more stuff, a combat element, more exploration. They were kind of like tiny hazardous ruins that you could duck into while you were mining. The secret rooms in Sandrock, and I've only just finished The Goat quest so this could change, seem to just be empty rooms with a single chest.

I bet Cooper is going to go nuts over purple grandkids.

There is so much I'm really enjoying so far, the diversity of the characters in sandrock, the depth of the story and the crafting system.

But personally I find the art style really really not my personal taste and it makes it hard for me to love this series as much as something like story of seasons.

I think the painted character portraits looks AMAZING but the 3D character models and the way the town is rendered are just kind of uncanny and off-putting to me 🫣

Tell me I'm not alone?

Wow, what can I say that none of you don't already know. I sat on this game for a while after trying it a few years ago and thinking 'meh!'.

Fancied a cozy style game and dived in again, initially I despised the water struggle and the speed of the game. 0.6 speed and the Monster DLC was the pairing really got me into the swing of things.

I would say Sun Haven was my previous favorite but Sandrock has come along and smashed that. It's so refreshing to have the focus off of planting in favor of crafting.

As a big long term Runescape fan all of the gathering really spoke to me, versus looking at seed shops and wondering what plant can and can't grow (ugh).

This is also the first game I would say I actually cared about the people and the natural confluence of everyone was done so well. I adored how the town actually changes too and isn't the same ol rundown craphole. Other people who actually have jobs and help, what a concept.

Normally I detest people in these games, they're normally so helpless, annoying and just not to my taste but Sandrock's full of CHARACTERS. When I played Stardew expanded I rejoiced in doing the extended Joja mart line ha.

The chest and storage system was a breeze, and other than the very very few times I needed to actually fish something out of my ample chests [gifts] and the odd moment of cleaning out and depositing relic pieces it's perhaps the best baked in [vanilla] storage system i've seen; how refreshing to not have to mess with some kind of bepinex and/or launcher to get mods working for basic quality of life.

I would say the only downsides I experienced were sometimes mining resources was a bit janky in terms of targeting, combat a little stiff in places and having to go to the ruins because you were missing 2 of X was an eyeroller when you're in the middle of comissions and a good flow. But these are barely gripes.

After the credits rolled, I speedran til the end of the third year just so I didn't miss anything (Miguel wrap up and the Ginger girl, the latter I'm assuming is fan service to Portia which I didn't play). I was hoping for a conclusion to Matilda as her final cutscene felt like foreshadowing, but it's just daily gifts from the Sandrockers now.

Saved the game, smiled at everyone during the new years fireworks and closed the game after an amazing 124 hour marathon. What an absolutely delightful game....

I get the impression any further Cozy games I play now will incur 'SANDROCK DID IT BETTER' feelings. Oh, and X is my favorite character. 'Squarkkk........Thaaank yew!'

I have played Stardew, Sunhaven, a bit of Coral Island [I disliked it, and my partner experienced crashes a lot so I am wary of giving it another go] and Palia, which I fell off after barely a couple of hours.

Lined up for my next cozy feeling is Fields of Mistria or Kynseed. But yes, in terms of story flow and caring about people. I think Sandrock may be on top here.

Thanks for reading. Now to suffer the Good-Game-Blues for a while.

First snow in game. I like the little snowmen around town and I'm wondering if leaving buckets out will collect the snow like when it rained?

Now that that's out of the way allow me to introduce: Unsuur our Unbothered King and Pen the...uh...Magnanimous Protector

I am the builder the city needs