Crafting makes me feel good!
My Time at Sandrock is the second farming/crafting game of developer Pathea Games. This is the sequel to the 2019 title My Time at Portia, I didn’t play that game very much but my wife loved it and I remember watching her play and thinking it looked cool. Sandrock manages to carry over a lot of the charm of the original game, most notably the delightful cast of characters and bright and colorful art style. Sandrock takes place in the Eufuala desert, where it was once a bustling town its now a shadow of its former self due to resource shortages. Its up to players to come into town and restore it to its former glory, and maybe make some friends and become a handyman for the townsfolk in the process.
MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $39.99
The most unique thing about Sandrock has got to be its desert setting, which the game takes advantage of. Taking place in a desert is already going to make things like resource gathering difficult but the fact that this area has seen a bit of a drought makes it that much worse and requires players to do things differently than they have in past farming/cozy games. For instance, the trees around town are forbidden from being chopped down, so instead players will gather wood from scrap piles that are littered around the areas. Water is another limited resource which players will either have to pay for or harvest from dew plants and convert it to water using machines.
My Time at Sandrock is one of those cozy games but its focus isn’t on farming like so many of the others in the genre. Instead, it focuses on crafting while making the farming a unique experience due to the desert setting. Due to the desert heart only the heartiest of plants will even survive so players will be limited to a few unique varieties. But as I said crafting takes the spotlight here and players will find themselves completing various tasks around town like rebuilding bridges or expanding buildings. One thing I will say about My Time at Sandrock is that as I walked around the town, I could visibly see the changes that I have helped create, watching this ghost town come to life was an enjoyable experience for sure.
There is a lot of things going on in Sandrock, players will have access to the main story, side quests, commissions from townsfolk for various items, the need to juggle resource gathering, raising combat skills, crafting and researching new machines, mini-games, cooking, raising animals and much more. This game is PACKED to the gills with activities for players and that is never a bad thing, but sometimes in Sandrock it become common to just feel overwhelmed.
Like most of these cozy games the majority of quests aren’t timed and players are able to tackle things at their own pace, but with so many options it becomes too much. What I found myself doing is when I sit down to play, I would plan out my own goals be it building up a relationship, or improving my research to build better machines. It was easier for me to manage tackling things like that instead of running from place to place trying to do everything in the limited amount of daylight players have.
I loved my time in Sandrock, it genuinely feels innovative within the farming/cozy games that have come out lately. As I said it My Time at Sandrock offers a ton of content for players to tackle, even though it can be overwhelming at times. The PC version also allows players to play the game co-op, at the time of this writing its not planned to come to the other platforms but that may change. The colorful art style, desert setting and memorable characters make for a fantastic adventure that players of the genre shouldn’t skip.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
