My Time Series Director on Designing a Sandbox, Scrapped DLC, and Evershine Kickstarter

In 2019, Pathea Games released My Time at Portia, a farm life sim published by Team17. With Studio Ghibli-inspired visuals, the game invited players to start a new life in the titular town full of friendly faces. I had heard about that game but my first foray into the My Time series was with last year’s sequel. While recovering from an ACL reconstruction surgery, I got lost in Sandrock, making friends and building my workshop.

So, naturally, when we were presented with the opportunity to talk to the team behind My Time at Sandrock as they launched the Kickstarter for the next game in the series, I had to take it. We got to ask My Time series Director Xu Zhi from Pathea Games a few questions about designing a sandbox farming sim, player feedback, their upcoming game, and more. Here is what they had to say.

The My Time games are part farming sims and part life sims. How do you balance that sandbox nature of a farming sim with narrative questlines and numerous characters of a life sim?

Xu Zhi: In My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock, players focus on restoring cities while juggling daily requests from NPCs. But My Time at Evershine elevates this dynamic—you’re now the governor of a fledgling settlement, shaping its future. By recruiting NPCs and followers to handle tasks like construction and resource gathering, you can focus on the bigger picture—making key decisions and advancing the story. This shift allows players to build meaningful relationships and experience the new dynamic town management functions more freely. The recruitment system impacts the town dynamics and unlocks unique quests based on who you bring in. This provides the support you need to create something truly special called home, while keeping the narrative momentum alive.

The Kickstarter for My Time at Evershine is now live. Other than the obvious advantage of more direct control over the project, what are the other benefits of crowdfunding a game of this scale?

Xu Zhi: My Time at Sandrock had a hefty price tag—around $12 million and still rising. We anticipate that Evershine’s budget will land in a similar range. Additional funding is always welcomed, especially as we aim to overhaul our entire art pipeline. Securing extra financial support early on in development also gives us the flexibility to plan for bigger, more ambitious goals or ensure we have a safety net to address any unexpected issues. Beyond the need for funding, strong early support and good results from a Kickstarter campaign can actually help us secure better marketing opportunities with publishers, media, and platform holders. Plus, we’ve always valued the feedback from our KS backers who get to experience the game first.

Were there any particular challenges faced or lessons learned in My Time at Sandrock that you’re applying to Evershine?

Xu Zhi: We’ve just moved past pre-production, but with our experience, we expect fewer hiccups along the way. There were several important design decisions that we made when we first started production. Less than 20% of our Sandrock players completed the game, largely because it was too long, and the final third felt like a slog. This led us to scrap plans for after-story narrative DLCs since the numbers didn’t support it (we’re considering a graphic novel instead). This time, we’re aiming for a story length closer to Portia’s pouring our resources on more focused, epic, and without the need for a mandatory third act.

Second, our recruitment system allows us to expand the variety of NPC stories, meaning that depending on who’s in your settlement, you’ll encounter different sidequests. (Mainline NPCs and story arcs are fixed for everyone—sorry, you can’t remove them.) Third, we’re including multiplayer co-op with story integration right from the start. This was a priority after we missed the mark with Sandrock. Lastly, we want to streamline the game by prioritizing key systems. Both Portia and Sandrock suffered a bit from expansionism, we always tried to solve issues by adding more, but this caused the games to become bloated. We had way too many mechanics and mini-games that not a lot of players actually needed, so we’ll seriously keep that in mind this time.

My Time has a large and supportive community. What was the most impactful piece of player feedback you’ve received over the years?

Xu Zhi: We receive an overwhelming amount of feedback daily, and every bit of it is equally important to us. However, I would like to share a recent example that had a significant impact on our character design and was a fun experience for the team. If you’ve played My Time at Sandrock, you’re likely familiar with Commander Avery, who will also appear in Evershine. Interestingly, many members of our community are fans of Avery and wanted to see him without his signature commander hat.

We harnessed the community’s creative energy and asked them for more suggestions, which eventually led to a fun meme about Avery hiding his baldness. Our team had a blast designing a new secret hairstyle, and we’re even considering incorporating a story to accompany the big hair reveal moment.

I believe the My Time games truly shine because our players play a vital role in shaping what makes this series the best.

My Time at Evershine is the third game in the My Time series and based on the new trailer you recently released, it seems the game visuals have been overhauled. Was this to take the series in a new direction or has the goal always been to evolve the look as you went?

Xu Zhi: When we began work on Evershine, I asked the artists to adjust a character’s proportions to a more standard height and ratio, adding extra details to see how it would turn out. The result? ‘Wow wow wow! That looks amazing! AMAZING! Let’s try it with all the other characters!’ I excitedly shouted. ‘But that would mean upgrading all the environmental assets to match the higher quality, which will increase costs significantly,’ the CEO pointed out. ‘It. Will. Be. Worth. It,’ was the determined response. *Of course, we also conducted surveys and research to back this decision.

So here we are, with new body proportions and a more realistic style. We believe this overall quality boost will offer something fresh for our core fans while also attracting new players. Some players have expressed concerns that this might lead to fewer fun designs and a more generic feel overall. We shared these concerns early on as well. But rest assured, after our artists adjusted to the new style and started pushing boundaries, we’re very happy with the direction we’re heading. We’ve managed to create fun, diverse characters within the new style and will continue refining them to make sure each one stands out.

That’s it for the interview. Thank you to Xu Zhi for taking the time to answer our questions and sharing some insight on the development of the My Time series. My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock are available now on consoles and PC. The Kickstarter for My Time at Evershine is still running and you can check it out here. For more on My Time, be sure to check out my review for My Time at Sandrock.