Cooking Set My Time At Portia

Brittany is a gaming addict! Her favourite genres are simulation games, crafting games, tycoons, RPG, city-builders, puzzles, and more!

The ultimate "My Time at Portia" guide and walkthrough!

My Time at Portia is an open world, RPG, simulation and crafting game where you're put in the shoes of a newcomer to the post-apocalyptic town of Portia. It's your job to take over as the town's builder, befriend the townsfolk, make money, complete commissions, grow crops and more!

I've spent over 100 hours playing this game and can't get enough of it! During my gameplay, I've picked up several tips and tricks to excel in the game. Looking for ways to make money, make friends, craft, farm, beat enemies, win competitions and gain skills? Look no further than this ultimate My Time at Portia guide!

Use the Table of Contents below to skip to the category you're interested in.

You'll need a lot of wood!

All screenshots are taken from my own gameplay, unless otherwise noted.

General Tips

Slow down the game's speed

You can go into the game's settings and slow down how fast the game-day passes in real life. I play at 70% speed and find it takes about 40 minutes in real life to complete one game day (from sun up to 3 am). You can play around a bit to see which time is most suitable for you.

Pick up poop

See all that poop in the farm and the grass? Pick it up. You need the poop for fertiliser, and sometimes you can get free seeds from it, which you can later replant on your farm.

Make lots of storage boxes and keep them in your home

You'll find yourself collecting so many items, and it's best to hold on to EVERYTHING as you'll never know when you need it. Craft several storage boxes and keep them in the house, so you don't waste precious outdoor space. Keep one box by your crafting stations for quick access (though crafting will automatically pull from your boxes) and one by the gate as well. Sadly, you can't place boxes anywhere outside of the farm.

Collect lots of wood

In the beginning of the game, you'll find you never have enough wood. You'll need it to run your furnaces which you should have several of (more on that below). Until you unlock the tree farm, you'll need to chop wood yourself, so spend some time chopping down trees to collect wood.

Trade 999 stone for 999 wood at A&G once a day

Once a day you can visit Gust's store at A&G Construction and trade 999 stone for 999 wood. You'll find it's super easy to collect stone when you're mining Abandoned Ruins; a lot easier than chopping wood.

Rent a horse

While it might be tempting to buy a stable and build it on your land, the cost of purchasing a stable + horse, and then the products needed and space lost to hold the stable aren't really worth it in the early game. It's far more cost-effective and space-efficient to rent a horse from McDonald for 500 gols a week.

Use the feather duster to pet multiple animals

If and when you do start keeping animals, the feather duster object will allow you to pet all the ones in the area with one click.

It sounds gross, but pick up poo. It's useful!

Upgrade your tools ASAP

As soon as you have the required materials, upgrade your pickaxe, axe, and sword. You can unlock bronze fairly quickly, but Iron materials are best (until late game when you can unlock the highest grade tools). Upgrading allows you to break open bigger rocks, chop down bigger trees, and mine faster.

You can unlock more inventory on your character

There are three pages worth of inventory slot on your character. Unlock a row of inventory slots (8 slots) by clicking on the padlock and purchasing them. You can have a total of 120 individual items (stacked by 999 each, except for some items) if you unlock all slots.

Explore everywhere to find chests and special items

Look in every house you can, every area on the map, high and low. You'll find hidden chests which contain special items—weapons, crafting items, bars, etc.

Use the calendar to set notes

You can write yourself reminders and even set them to repeat by click on the calendar.

Look for the Mysterious Man each month on the 27th and 28th

He walks around town and sells rare goods—giant seeds, items for pets, furniture, and more. His goods are pricey, so save your gols!

Save relic pieces to use in the Recovery Machine

Pretty self-explanatory, but you need the pieces to make relics, which can be used for the museum, decorating, stat increases or friendship points (more detail on all of this below)

Don't bother using extra Data Discs to speed up Research

Unless you have Data Discs to spare, don't bother. It generally only speeds up research by a day or two and can really waste Data Disks, which you need so many of to unlock recipes and progress in the beginning of the game.

Skills and Stats

Use furniture and clothes for upgraded stats

Most furniture items (including relics found in the mines) have bonus stats, like adding on more HP, SP, attack or defence. If you place them in your home, you can upgrade your status. Check the frame on the wall in your house to see how high your stats can go. You can get an increase in stats by building a bigger house and levelling up.

You can get bonuses for making friendships

Some characters in the game will give you stat bonuses when you become buddy level relationship with them and higher.

Arlo gives attack bonus.
Remington gives extra defence points.
Sam gives more resilience stats.
Phyllis gives extra stamina points.

Use all your stamina each day and stay up late

There's no penalty for staying up until 3 a.m. in this game, so play until you pass out. Use all your stamina collecting items or mining, and then pass out at bedtime. You'll wake up back in your bed in the morning with full stamina and HP again.

If you do run out of stamina, that's a good time to organise your farm or craft

It doesn't cost any stamina to move furniture or operate crafting stations, so if you've run out completely and still have time in your day, use this time to redecorate your home or farm and do some crafting.

Eat at The Round Table to replace stamina

You can pay for a meal at The Round Table and restore your stamina (by a certain amount of points).

Use apples to replenish stamina

Apples are one of the best (and free!) sources of replenish stamina. During the early game, just kick apple trees and eat raw apples for 5+ stamina (kicking the tree takes 1 stamina, so stamina yield is 4 points). Once you craft the blender, you can turn raw apples into Apple Juice for 10+ points. And finally, once you have a drying rack, you can make Dried Apples for 10% stamina increase. Plant a few apple trees and make some drying racks once you can, and you'll have a steady supply of stamina!

Use herbs to replace HP

You can pick up herbs all around town for free. Raw herbs restore 10 HP. Once you have a blender you can make Herbal Juice for 25 HP. You can use Herbal Juice and Cotton to craft Simple Ointment which restores a whopping 125 HP. I keep a stack of Simple Ointment on my character at all times to restore HP while in combat.

Level up to unlock Skills

Using stamina, crafting, and completing commissions give you experience points, which in turn help you level up, and each time you level up, you unlock one point for your skill tree.

You can unlock the skill tree as you like, depending on the way you like to play, but I focus mostly on gathering and social skills as most defence skills can be increased by food and weapons (more on fighting and defence below).

You can also reset your skill tree using acupuncture with Phyllis (10% bonus if you're buddies with her) at Dr. Xu's office.

Take note that you don't have to unlock the entire row on a tree to go down to the branch below it; you just need to spend 5 points per branch to drop down to the next level of skills, and you can spread those points as you wish.

You can go on dates with the bachelors/bachelorettes in the game.

Friendship and Marriage

Keep Topaz on hand to give as a cheap gift

If you want to make friends in the game (and you definitely do, see more below!), then a good way to make friends quickly is by giving a gift each day. Some characters have things they like and dislike, but in the beginning, it's very easy to hand out Topaz as everyone likes it and it gives you +4 friendship (except to Ginger, who only gets 1 point) and costs nothing for you to give out. You can obtain Topaz by mining larger rocks with an iron pickaxe.

Talk to everyone once a day

They repeat the same lines, but it gives you friendship points!

Leave relics outside in your farm for friendship points

Anytime an NPC passes by and sees a relic they like; you'll gain friendship points (sometimes 30+ points) with them. The same goes for NPC seeing a relic you put in the museum.

Give people gifts they love

Obviously, once you're making more gols and have the money and resources to do so, you can gift NPCs with the items they love to increase friendship points. Check the wiki for specific characters (or try using trial and error). Loved gifts given on a character's birthdays or on holidays are worth double points.

Complete commissions/do special quests

Other than the monetary value of completing commissions, it's also a really great way to gain friendship points. Each time you turn in a commission, you'll get friendship points with the NPC who posted it. The same goes for the special quests (the ones that show up on the map as a blue exclamation point)—they're side quests that don't advance the overall storyline, but will give you points for the character who you're interacting with.

Most NPCs give discounts for being their friends

All the shopkeepers give discounts at their relevant shops once you reach buddy level with them (Django at The Round Table, Albert at A&G Construction, Nora at the Church Store, etc.).

Gale gives a discount on land upgrades, Antoine gives a bonus on gols earned for commissions, Ack gives a discount on his monthly hire fee, Dawa and Dana give discounts on subscriptions to the mining service and tree farm, respectively.

Once you make friends, you can expect lots of presents on your birthday!

Go on playdates to get friendship points

Once you reach Buddy status, you can go on playdates with NPCs. You can gain friendship points by interacting with them, playing mini-games together, chatting, or eating at The Round Table.

How to get married

Make sure you're interested in a dateable NPC (sorry, no marrying Gale or Ack)—you can tell if you can date them by looking at the Social Tab and seeing if their relationship points are displayed by hearts. If their points are displayed by stars, they can't be dated.

Increase your friendship with the above methods until you reach Friend status. After becoming friends, you can give them a Heart Knot (purchased at Alice's Flower Shop). Make sure you have a high friendship before doing so, or they can reject you!

Once they accept, they'll become your boyfriend and girlfriend. Keep increasing the relationship by going on dates, interacting with them, giving gifts and chatting. In the meantime, upgrade your house to Level 2 or higher.

Purchase a Wedding Ring from the Mysterious Man and propose to your partner once you're at Lover status or higher. If they say yes, you'll get married the very next day. You can purchase wedding clothes from The Church Store if you want, as well.

Your spouse will then move in with you can help around the farm (collecting crafted items or tending to animals), give you gifts, spend time with you during the day (you can ask them to "follow" you) or even randomly ask you to go and do special things together (like go for a photoshoot or go fishing together).

Crafting

Later in the game, you can build a factory!

Have several crafting stations

At the beginning of the game, it's best to have at least 5 stone furnaces, 1 grinder, 2 cutters, and 1 skiver. You can then craft more stations as you see necessary.

Upgrade your Worktable ASAP

This will give you access to more craftable items, which means bigger commissions and more money.

Always have your furnaces running

Keep them making items all the time—stay on top of wood for fuel and constantly keep a steady flow of items being made.

Always keep a stack of at least 20:

bronze bars (which can be turned into bronze pipes- also useful)
steel plates
iron bars
carbon steel bars

All these items are used in large quantities and for many of the recipes in the game.

Farming

Buy at least 6 Large Planters from the Church Store

They cost 2 Data Disks each. They can only be purchased from the Church Store.

Buy and plant at least one of each tree

Apricot, Apple, Crystella, Nitra, and Zeolora Trees can all be planted and grow year-round. Purchase them from the Church Store using Data Disks as early in the game as you can. I recommend buying 2 Apple Trees, if you can afford to.

Use 1 Large Planter for Special Giant Seeds

You can buy them from the Mysterious Man. Special Seeds take up to 28 days to mature. Always have one growing, and once you harvest them, save your Giant Crop for selling or for entry in The Autumn Festival.

Craft at least 10 small planters and plant year-round

There are some seeds you can plant any time and some that are seasonal. Make sure you're always planting your seasonal crops during the appropriate season (like Red Pepper in Summer, for example) and keep a steady supply of other crops growing too. Rainbow Flower is good to plant year-round, as you can use it to make Pigments, which can be used to craft a variety of items. Cotton should also be planted year-round (except winter, when it can't be planted) as you'll need a lot of cotton for various items.

Use fertiliser to double yield/chance of more seeds

You can buy fertiliser from Sophie's Farm Store or craft it yourself using the blender.

You don't need to water plants

No watering necessary, simply plant, fertilise, and harvest!

Eventually, you can unlock a helper to do this all for you!

Some spouses can do your harvesting for you, but if you hire Ack, he can fertilise, harvest, and re-plant for you. It's great!

Making Money

Beating Higgins is easy with a bit of strategy.

Do commissions every day

Make sure you head to the Commerce Guild at exactly 8 a.m. each day to grab your daily commission.

Choose a commission you can complete in one day

In the beginning, it'll be tempting to take a commission that pays the most- but chances are you won't have all the goods or enough stations to craft it quickly. If you don't craft it before time is up, you lose workshop points. So choose the commission that you know you can either craft quickly or already have the required item for. Try to give it to the NPC later that day. Then rinse and repeat the next day.

Beat Higgins to the commission board

You can beat Higgins to the board if you get to the Commerce Guild at 8 (he's also there at 8, but he'll walk slower than you if you sprint). You can then select the highest paying commission and look at it until Higgins leaves—looking at a commission prevents him from choosing it, so he's forced to take a lower-paying one. Once you have progressed in the game, you can snatch the highest paying commission before he does and look at the second highest one, forcing him to take a small commission instead.

Sell goods back to the vendors around town

Most of the vendors in town will buy back your goods. They are limited in how much money they have each day for buying. A&G Construction usually has the most gols to buy back from you, so I go there first. You can also sell most things to Best Brother and Total Tools.

Craft goods and sell them back to vendors when the market is high.

Buy low, sell high

The market values change every day. The lowest I've seen the market get is 74%. This is a good time to stock up on plants, ingredients, fishing worms, or whatever other goods you want.

The highest I've seen the market get is 134%. This is a good time to sell extra items you've crafted or spare relics. I generally start selling once the market goes above 100% and save my most expensive goods (look in your inventory to see how much products sell for) for when the market reaches 120% or higher (but really, hold out to 134% days when you can).

You can check the register in the commerce building to see the market price that day after you've gotten your daily commission.

Turn spare stone into stone stools and sell them

Selling pure stone is only worth .5 gol. Selling stone stools is worth 7 gols. You can craft stone stool instantaneously at the worktable for 10 stone. You can make a better profit selling your stone as stools rather than just pure stone.

Sell spare sand and soil

You'll find yourself collecting these by the 999's just by doing a few runs in the ruins. Sell the spare ones for some quick and easy money and just keep one stack of 999 in your inventory. You probably won't even need that many of either.

Sell spare furniture, relics and weapons

Pretty much anything you collect in the ruins can be sold. Once you've reconstructed a relic, save one for the museum (which is unlocked later), one for your farm, and sell the rest. Most relics are worth at least 250 gols. You can only get so many bonuses for furniture and eventually you'll get tired of those pink couches. Sell them. And you only need the highest-powered weapon in your inventory- sell the spares.

Fish for money

I don't personally like fishing, but many people do. King Fish sell for the most gols (5k) and can be caught in the various fishing spots. You can also craft a fish tank and breed fish and sell them.

You need two fish of the same kind for them to breed. It's really only worthwhile to breed King Fish. Feed them 3 dough balls each day, and after 9 days they will breed another King Fish, which you can sell for profit. If you can't catch a King Fish yet, at least try breeding with an Emperor Fish.

Craft and sell trap devices in late game for money

This is my favourite item to craft for money. You unlock the recipe after the "The Perfect Trap" mission (which comes in the main story after you unlock Starlight Island). You only need 5 steel frame and 4 hard aluminium to craft 1 trap- both of which can be crafted fairly quick. 1 trap sells for 944 gols and if you sell at 136% market, you can sell them for $1283 gols each. Craft and sell in bulk to Total Tools or A&G once the market gets to its highest. I usually sell at least 50 a month, but you can really grind more out if you need to.

Don't bother with animals in the beginning

Early game, it's not really worthwhile to bother with animals. Just like the horses, you have to have space on your farm (which includes purchasing land), materials to craft the necessary shed and coops, gols to craft the storage shelter with and then food to feed the animals with. They also take up time, as you have to pet them each day and clean up their poop. Eggs, milk, and fur can be obtained several other ways in the game without owning animals and don't sell for much anyway. Skip animals until at least year 2. Once you unlock Ack, he can do all the tending for you (or your spouse can) and makes animals much more low-maintenance. Then you can raise and sell your animals and their goods.

Don't bother with farming

Again, farming isn't a super lucrative money-making skill in this game. While you certainly should have some planters and be growing things year-round, it's better to use these items for your own crafting and resources. Selling planted goods isn't really lucrative until you unlock the South Block Trade Post, which will ask for certain items (like Rainbow Flowers or cotton) in bulk and you can sell them for more.

Combat

I'll preface this with a statement: combat in this game is relatively easy. It's mainly a combo of hack and slash, just clicking the button over and over to hit your target. The higher your skills and weapons are, the faster/easier you can kill. But there's not a lot of skill or strategy required in combat, which is nice, in a way.

Still a few pointers:

Use food for bonuses on combat

Several dishes give temporary buffs for combat, either adding attack, defence or critical chance (critical hits that give a major blow to enemies and kill them faster). I personally like the critical chance foods, like Fruit Tart (15% critical chance), Spicy Tea (30%), and Bubblefish Stew (35%). All of these can be made fairly easy (with few ingredients) at the Cooking Set.

It's also good to buy Cheap Soda from The Food Store (outside of The Round Table) for 10+ Attack or Rainbow Lemonade for 10+ Defence.

Food buffs don't stack with one another (eating a new food replaces whichever buff you currently had), but they will stack with whatever Stats you already have.

Accessories and hats also add bonuses

Always keep accessories and a hat equipped which can add to your attack, defence, critical chance, or HP.

You can also hide the hats and accessories

Because, let's face it: some of them are hideous and don't go with the rest of your character's outfit. You can hide the hats and accessories in the settings screen.

Use high attack weapons for fighting

You can look at weapons in the inventory screen to find out their attack stats or critical chance. Early game, you'll find the Knuckle weapon, which deals 90 Attack points and you should use that for close-range combat. Poison Knuckles deal 120 Attack. Later, you'll unlock some pretty powerful tools from completing the main story, and it'll be easy to defeat enemies.

Winning the karate competition is a breeze by Year 2.

Don't waste HP consumables in dungeons

There are a few dungeon missions in the game where you go alone or with NPCs to defeat enemies (i.e., the WOW Industries mission that comes during the first year). These special "dungeon" areas usually have free places to eat food or use medicine to restore full HP and stamina. Also, if you die in a dungeon, you'll just come back with 100% HP upon regeneration, anyway, so there's really no penalty for death on these missions.

Save your HP consumables for the Hazardous Ruins.

You can still die and regenerate with full health, but only three times per run. After that, you'll have to start over and lose 3 or more hours of time.

How to defeat the Hazardous Ruins boss

The bosses in each ruins are really only tricky if you don't have the right weapons/materials, and really, only the Chemical Dropout in the Sewage Plant is hard as it comes pretty early in the game, before you might have high stats, skills, and weapons.

To beat him and the King Rat (another "tough" enemy that comes early game), here's what I recommend:

Stock up on herbal juice
Make sure you have accessories that give you critical chance equipped (Logic Cube + Sunglasses give you a total of 20% critical chance)
Drink Cheap Soda or Spicy Tea right when you enter the boss' room
Equip the Knuckles to fight with (unless you have a higher weapon at this point)
Create a wide breadth from Chemical Dropout (since he shoots poison at you) in the beginning and run towards him counter-clockwise
Get in close and hit them repeatedly with the Knuckles until they are defeated
If you're close to dying, run back from them and use some Herbal Juice to gain more HP, then dive back in

Karate Contest

It's worth noting that you probably won't win the karate contest your first year, but you can use the tips above to give yourself the best chance. By the time Year 2 rolls around, you'll be a higher level and be a stronger fighter than all the NPCs and will be able to easily beat anyone—even Arlo.

That's All for Now!

Those are all the tips I have for now! Do you have any tips for My Time at Portia? Which tip did you find most useful? Let me know in the comments section below!

Questions & Answers

Question: Where do I get carbon fiber in My Time at Portia?

Answer: You can find carbon fiber mainly in the ruins; the Somber Marsh Abandoned Ruins, Ingall's Mine (Level 4) or Deepest Ruin.

Question: Where do I get blue leather or make it?

Answer: Blue leather can't be crafted, but you can get it from killing Slurpees in the Collapsed Wasteland!

Question: How many hours will it take me to finish the game of My Time at Portia?

Answer: It depends on how focused you are on the main story/quests. I'd say around 80 hours. I'm at 70 something myself and still haven't finished the last storyline, but that's because I tend to spend more time exploring/making money than the main questline.

Nicole on February 01, 2020:

This is the best thing I've ever read. Thank you SO much!

nick on January 04, 2020:

This was a really good write up, well done! I've only got around 20 hours in so far but it has really grabbed me :)

Roarst on December 17, 2019:

One important tip for combat: dodge rolling. Dont just stand there taking hits and getting stunned.

flo on September 03, 2019:

It is quite easy to win the karate contest. Just dodge their first attack, hit them once, then run away until the timer runs out.

Aaron on July 13, 2019:

I agree, this is a great synopsis. I'm in my first winter. I personally recommend going for the experience gain skill first. Also starting behind your opponent in the karate competition is cheap but helpful.

Amelia on June 07, 2019:

Really well done post. Thank you. I'm about three weeks into the game, and your post is perfect to guide me!

Brittany Brown (author) from Sydney, Australia on May 13, 2019:

Aww, brown girl gamers unite! And happy to help :)

Shanda Renee on May 13, 2019:

This is the best comprehensive guide Ive found so far. From one brown girl to the next, thank you!

Julian on April 22, 2019:

For the karate contest and some sparring you dont really have to hit anyone just run in circles to avoid them. Its cheap yea but early on it helps

Brittany Brown (author) from Sydney, Australia on April 19, 2019:

You're welcome! Happy to help!

MTaPNewbie on April 19, 2019:

These are super helpful tips! Thank you for taking the time to write all this up :)