Transform the wild frontier! Farming in My Time at Sandrock

With our first public story demo going live on the 16th of June, we thought it would be a good time to check in and talk about some new features you can expect to find soon in My Time at Sandrock Early Access!
[h3]Desert farming![/h3]


Many simulation games use farming as a core aspect of gameplay, Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, to name a few; so when designing My Time at Portia, we wanted to include our version of it to add another layer of customization and personalization into the gameplay experience.

Portia is a crafting/management RPG first, so we tried to incorporate farming into the workshop experience by making the planting boxes craftable. You can read more about our process in sorting that out here.

Though some players appreciated the ability to quickly move your crops around easily, most people have stated that they’d prefer to cultivate off the ground. With Sandrock, we listened to the players and have ditched the planter boxes for a more traditional farming style, but not one without improvements:

We’ve created a “Planting Toolkit” that players will be able to carry as one item in their inventory. No need to carry 3-4 extra tools, water, fertilizer, etc. just to plant some rice; once you open your toolkit and enter planting mode, you’ll have access to everything you need.



The toolkit is all designed based on real-world equipment and techniques that our team studied first-hand in the desert. Begin by using a square shovel to create a straw square, an essential technique in protecting seeds from sand blowing over them.

From this seed icon, you’ll have access to all the seeds you own without having to open up any menus.


The third icon will be a watering can which works about the way you’d expect. We do plan to make it upgradable and also are considering a more advanced system that will automatically water plants.

The fourth icon is simply a quick harvest functionso that you don’t have to exit out of the toolkit if you want to harvest and manage your other plants at the same time.

The fifth icon will help you organize your soil and fertilizer; in the desert of Sandrock, soil quality is extremely important. Just like in real desert planting, soil improves as you continue to grow plants in the same place, so we wanted to give players the option to move their rich, high quality soil if they want.



Eventually, planting will allow players to turn parts of the desert green again, just like real anti-desertification efforts happening in our world today. You may gain some rapport with the more eco-friendly townsfolk, and you’ll certainly get yourself some tasty veggies to boot by mastering the farming system in Sandrock!

All in all, we're setting out to create a system of farming that is easy to use, feels fresh, and is immersive. But the only way we'll know if we've succeeded with this or any other aspect of the game is if you give us feedback! Though farming isn't included in our first story demo, it's worth checking out our demo that will be available on the 16th of June during the Steam Next Fest! Don't miss out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084600?utm_source=ST&utm_Campaign=BT1

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