Team17 signs first Chinese-developed title, My Time at Portia

Team17 has signed its first game from a Chinese developer, the publisher has announced. Developed by Pathea Games, My Time at Portia (pictured) is a 3D sandbox RPG inspired by titles such as Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Dark Cloud 2 and the works of Studio Ghibli legend Hayao Miyazaki.

The game is currently undergoing the final stages of a crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter, where it’s raised $73,382 of its$100,000goal. There are still eight days to go before the end of the campaign, but the team at Pathea have created a free 6-8 alpha demo on Steam, Itch.io, IndieDB and GameJolt to give gamers an idea of what to expect. It’s currentlyset for release on both PC and consoles in 2018.

In the game, players will be tasked with gathering materials from a variety of locations to help grow their garden. Locations include deserts, reefs, highlands, marshlands, mines and many more, as well as dungeons guarded by monsters with rare treasures inside. Villagers on the island will also have their own stories and routines, including their own jobs and school timetables, but you’ll also be able to befriend and romance certain characters as you get to know them.

Debbie Bestwick, MBE, CEO of Team17 said: We welcome Pathea to the Team17 label and it’s exciting to work with a talented studio in a region with an emerging indie development scene. We’re thrilled to be supporting them in their development roadmap and the bringing the game to multiple platforms in 2018.”

Zifei Wu, President at Pathea Games added: My Time at Portia is a huge passion project for the team here at Pathea games and we’re excited to be working closely with Team17. We’re hugely grateful to the support and enthusiasm of the backers of our campaign so far and the Alpha build we shared was just a very small taste of the world we’re going to create in partnership with Team17 in bringing My Time at Portia to PC and consoles.”