If you haven't heard of it, My Time at Portia is an indie farming/life simulation game that offers gameplay similar to Story of Seasons and Animal Crossing, where you'll befriend villagers, plant crops, hunt for loot, and craft all kinds of objects. It's available on consoles and PC, having built up a solid fanbase, and today marks the release on mobile. Best of all, the game is currently on sale, which means you can snag your copy for $5.49 (normally $7.99). Not bad, though there are a few caveats included, which I've detailed below.

30 minutes of gameplay recorded by yours truly on the Balanced graphics setting

As you can imagine, I play many mobile games, including titles on the Nintendo Switch. This is why I'm familiar with My Time at Portia. The port on the Nintendo Switch suffers from performance issues, so I wanted to see how the game stacked up on Android. Surprisingly performance is pretty solid. There are three graphics modes to choose from; Better Performance, Balanced, and High Graphics. All three are capped at 30 FPS, though depending on your device and which mode you choose, you could see some dips into the 20s. I personally tested the game on a ROG 5, and all three modes held to 30 FPS for the most part.

Start screen and graphics settings

Now, since My Time at Portia was designed around controller support, I'm sure many are wondering how the touch controls feel. For me, they feel pretty good. You have a thumbstick on the left and a few buttons on the right for things like jumping and utilizing your tools, with a rectangle made up of five small boxes at the bottom center of the screen where you'll store your most used items for easy access. It's a familiar setup, albeit a little clunky, but I have no doubt I could finish the game using the touchscreen controls, so I'd say the touch UI works nicely.

Standing in front of my house

I also checked for controller support because My Time at Portia would be a great game to play on Chromebooks and tablets, but sadly none of my controllers worked, and I tested a few, including an Xbox 360 controller over USB, the SteelSeries Stratus Duo over bluetooth, and even the ROG Kunai 3 gamepad over USB. None of them worked, not even partially, though the developer claims the game offers partial controller support, which is odd since I can't find it. So perhaps your mileage will vary?

As far as gameplay goes, this is an indie game, so there is some jank, especially when it comes to cutscene transitions, but overall the mobile version of My Time at Portia works well. You'll inherit your father's workshop, then take on tasks where you'll acquire resources in order to build items and structures for the townsfolk in an open world. And I'm not kidding when I say there is a lot of content. On average, it should take most players 65+ hours to complete the primary campaign, and if you're a completionist, there's easily over 100 hours of gameplay.

Out an about

So yes, it would seem controller support is missing or simply wasn't a focus for Android, which is really disappointing since it limits everyone to the touchscreen controls, and the 30 FPS cap in all of the game's graphics modes is a bit of a headscratcher too. Luckily the price is low, and the touch controls work well. While it would have been nice to see some improvements for these controls, such as auto-entry and exits for doors (you have to manually tap a button every time, which is annoying for a touch UI), what's available is plenty good enough for most people to work their way through the game without any issues. For that, you have to give the developer/porter credit, and so I can confidently recommend the Android port for My Time at Portia, especially since everyone can grab a copy at a discount in celebration of the game's release on mobile.

My Time at Portia Developer: Nuverse
Price: 7.99
3.7
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