Interview with My Time at Sandrock Vice President Aaron Deng and Writer David Peck: Art direction & NPC creation

Dexerto spoke with Pathea Vice President Aaron Deng and My Time at Sandrock writer David Peck about the creation of the “My Time” sequel, and how the developers brought the new story to life.

Currently, there are several slice-of-life and farming sims enjoying high popularity among gamers. However, none approach the genre quite like the “My Time” series. Pathea’s first project, My Time at Portia, offered a charming and uplifting look at a post-apocalyptic world – and My Time at Sandrock takes the wonder of the first game and builds on it for an even more enjoyable experience.

My Time at Sandrock is set in a small, western-themed town filled with quirky NPCs and a charming storyline. Players spend their time fixing up their homestead, building useful devices to run their farms, and completing questlines for the town’s inhabitants.

While not fully released, players will find My Time At Sandrock’s early access gameplay is rich with content, and it is easy to slip into the daily chores and exciting exploration for hours at a time. Dexerto has the opportunity to sit down with Aaron Deng and David Peck to talk about how the Pathea team infused color and vibrancy into a dusty, desert landscape, and how they took a simple slice-of-life idea and expanded it into a multi-game story in a brilliant and uplifting world.

To get started, we asked Aaron and David about the process of developing a sequel to My Time at Portia, and what hurdles they had to overcome while creating My Time at Sandrock. David started out by saying:

“I guess it’s always the uncertainty. Like, Portia itself was kind of a surprise hit, and we found ourselves in a position where it’s like, “wow, people actually like this game, and we have a company. We’re making this game.”

“We wanted to do a lot more, especially with the character quests. We did a bunch of free updates for Portia and we were going to make a Sandrock DLC because it was on the map next to Portia, so some stuff is just sort of improvised – which can be nerve-wracking. But I guess at this point, looking back, we have a lot more confidence. You can kind of do anything if you do it right.”

Aaron also had interesting thoughts on what is required to add another chapter to an already established world, adding:

“This is exactly the biggest drawback of the design of the sequel in this series. So let’s look at this topic from several aspects. First, the game’s main core gameplay loop remains unchanged as the legacy of the first game in this series. Even now, based on the workshop operation, various things are being produced to liven up, the progress of the main story.

Second, we specially chose the location of Sandrock so that players can feel the difference as soon as they enter the game. Sandrock is completely different from the Portia of the game world. Portia is close to the sea, has warm springs and flowers, is rich in natural vegetation and resources, and the greeny port city. Sandrock is surrounded by sand and rock, and the color is yellow. Therefore, the first time a player enters Sandrock, he will feel a very distinct difference between the two games.”

Starting over doesn’t have to be depressing

My Time at Sandrock continues an interesting narrative twist that was first introduced in My Time at Portia: life after an apocalyptic event. The main character and the NPCs living in the town are all rebuildings after a catastrophic event leveling the world.

However, instead of gritty, collapsed societies, there is an optimistic air in the world as people rebuild. Animals scuttle through the sand and grass, the sky is wide and blue, and there is hope that despite what happened before the events of the story, the future will be promising for all still thriving. Curious, we asked why the Pathea team decided to take this approach, and how it influenced the writing of the story. David replied with:

“It’s funny to say, what if we all died? But what if we all didn’t? We blew ourselves up and then we were like, okay, let’s never do that again and just explore that direction. What if we actually did pick ourselves back up? That’s kind of the angle we were going for.

“We want to give the players the ability to feel like they’re making a difference. If you’re going to build stuff in a game, what’s cooler than rebuilding society to kind of be the hero of the universe? So, in a sense, the narrative is also based on making the gameplay, which is building stuff, feel more useful and important.”

Creating the best options for players

My Time at Sandrock has a particularly in-depth character creator for players to use. They can customize their hair and skin colors, pick fun eye shapes, and tailor their avatar to their own perfect slice-of-life persona. We asked the Pathea team what went into making this creator, and how they created such a diverse selection of options. Aaron starts by saying:

“Most of the game’s main NPCs are romantic, so we’ll do our best to design a variety of characters that everyone will love. This process is very complicated. Basically, there are several personality types listed, from which you can choose the personality that suits the story background of the game and form your character. Age, identity, skin color, etc. should also be considered at this point.”

David goes on to add:

“I think this might be a simple take, but I think what happened with the characters is we just gave the art team a bunch of time and resources and told them just go nuts and never stop and never look back – and they just made a bunch of stuff. I remember going over there one time. They asked me to just take a look at some of the new stuff they were doing, and we have, like, lizard eyes, and I was like, “Guys, do we really need lizard eyes?” And they said “people like lizard eyes.”

A team of writers brings Sandrock to life

When talking about the development of My Time at Sandrock, we also asked David how the Pathea team has created such a warm and detailed narrative. He offered some introspective thoughts about the writing process for the game.

“I actually applied to do the music but ended up starting to do the writing. Things were going pretty well, so we started looking for, like, a writing team.

“I think it’s a delicate line to walk. We all have our different strengths and collaborating can be difficult because we’ll disagree. As a random piece of advice for anybody, when assembling a writing team, I think one of the most important things is to just be able to give and receive criticism in a respectful and humble way. To give respectfully and to receive humbly will get you a lot further because, at the end of the day, you will have a better story if it goes past everybody’s desk and people throw in this or that quip or this character seems a little weird here.”

The insight both Aaron and David brought in regards to My Time at Sandrock’s creation is a great way for fans to understand how the “My Time” world is developed. It is truly a treat to know what went into making this slice-of-life adventure tick.