I feel like no one talks enough about the little sub-Ghibli genre of post-apocalyptic hopecore.
I’m specifically thinking about Castle in the Sky here, and also Nausicaä: worlds in which the old ways have led to Ozymandian devastation and ruin, leaving small communities to cobble together life from what remains, which is often poisoned, contaminated and seemingly beyond salvation.
Grim and gut-churning to be reminded that no empire lasts forever when caught in the belly of the beast yourself - and yes, today of all days, it is a hard thought to dwell on.
But what makes these films so worth it for me - to the point that I fall asleep to Castle in the Sky and Joe Hisaishi’s enduring theme for it at least three nights a week - is that it upends assumptions that the inevitable fall that follows corruption, pollution, violence and hate will be all-encompassing and universally destructive.
That acts of mutual aid, care for the community and the climate, defiance against imperialism and protecting the vulnerable will be meaningless before, during and after the end of the world as we know it.
That there will, one day, be a cessation of hope and the ability to generate a better world than the one that came before.
If you’re like me, and find these themes reaffirming of your own values - today, and every day - you may enjoy My Time at Sandrock.
I know I am.
So, let me pre-emptively say: if you weren’t able to get into My Time at Portia as much as I wasn’t - which is, I literally played five seconds on my Switch during the early days of the pandemic, and was back in Stardew Valley courting Sebastian with Frozen Tears without a second thought after I couldn’t navigate town without getting lost - you may be a little dismayed to know this is from the same studio, Pathea Games.
But, hold on a second. Remember that the whole loose theme of this post is about change coming after a fall. Second chances. New beginnings.
Give Pathea Games that opportunity for a new beginning, because man, the team learned their lesson and they came back swinging.
Unlike My Time at Portia, which always aligned itself with the farming sim subgenre of cozy games, I wouldn’t call Sandrock a farming sim at all - though it does share some of its mechanics, like romanceable neighbors and eventual marriage.*
That’s because you can’t call a game a farming sim where you’re living in the middle of a desert and water is a valuable, near-sacred resource.
(Tip: let go of any dreams about plentiful crops right out of the gate. It’s not happening.)
This is one of the first reasons I fell in love with Sandrock, after several months of spinning my wheels trying to figure out how I felt about it at all (and we’ll get to why it took me so long in a minute): the deep emphasis on natural resources and working with the land, rather than forcing it into submission.
It’s an unavoidable rite of passage: your character chops down a tree to collect wood for a new contraption of a sort - did I mention that we’re not farmers, but Builders brought in to support Sandrock’s survival through eco-friendly contraptions and recycled tools that can make the townsfolk’s lives better? Not yet? - and then someone from the local church, which I’m still not sure how I feel about (there are some hints that not all is peace and joy around that institution), turns up to yell at you and let you know that if you do that again and kill a living tree, everyone will shun you.
Everyone.
So that’s cool. And I literally mean it. I’m glad that the game holds to its convictions and lets you know there will be Consequences.
So, you can’t chop trees, but you have a whole town relying on you and Mi-an, your friendly Goodie-Two-Shoes of a fellow Builder (everyone loves Mi-an but me, it’s a thing - I’m just the type of girl who hates running around while an NPC just twiddles her thumbs and we both get shared credit for my blood, sweat and tears), to roll out commissions and build machines and repair bridges.
What do you do?
You scavenge. You mine. You fight the pack of dirty, nasty outlaw lizards trying to destroy town - wait, lizards?
Yes, lizards.
In a world that has come to pieces and is forging forward into an uncertain, tentative future, you cobble together life and hope from what you find, and learn heavy lessons from the elders who saw the devastation as it occurred and want you to avoid the pain they suffered.
As much as this game makes me laugh, and it does, it doesn’t pull its punches either.
Every little victory is hard-won, and it feels all the more sweeter to feel your community coming together around you and welcoming you in just a little more - because you’re going through it beside them.
I never really made it back to my whole “oh, it took me a while to sink into this game.” Probably I shouldn’t downplay the mistake of trying to start it when I was literally knee-deep in the body aches and agony of COVID-19 last summer, but even restarting it after that first failed attempt made me realize that there’s a steeper learning curve to this game than Stardew Valley, for example.
There’s some hand-holding - map icons that lead you in the direction of a necessary mission, thank goodness - but a lot of the mechanics and general gameplay can really go over your head if you’re used to being entirely guided into a new world.
It’s a good thing that there’s a great community a few taps and a Google away.
Like, I know people are very understandably wary of Reddit, but when I tell you that so many helpful Sandrockers have made such an effort to explain as much of this game and its particular eccentricities as possible for the incoming Builders? I mean it, and I am so incredibly grateful for the external community that has sprung up from wanting to make a community in-game.
Isn’t it beautiful how far a fictional narrative of hope and resilience can reach?
But anyway, yeah, you wanna keep your phone or laptop near and don’t be afraid to Google things. There’s also an official wiki that is incredibly helpful if you’re not sure where to, say, find the tin ore you need to fire up bronze bars, or exactly how to win over the reticent town doctor and his talkative pet bird.
Did I mention the love interests? Never have I fallen so quickly for an incredible, very quirky and fun to talk with cast of characters - well, probably not since Fields of Mistria first hit Early Access.
Pathea was like, “You’re literally going to find love in a hopeless place.”
I’m currently dating who a lot of Sandrock Redditors affectionately deem Rock Boy, Unsuur, after spending most of the early game dragging him for looking like a Muppet.
Yes, he still looks like a Muppet.
But he’s my Muppet (with a big heart and a decidedly neuroatypical hyperfixation on rocks who will somehow center a whole date around them and get me aww-ing out loud anyway).
Honestly, the game isn’t 100% perfect - but then again, is any game?
I think the effort it makes to present a complicated but enduring community, and give the player an opportunity to consider the weight of their actions - both as an individual and within a collective - to make that community better than what preceded it is an admirable and important one, and worth the learning curve and the occasional frame rate drop right before a cut scene starts.
Today, as I curl up under a throw blanket and do my absolute best to both be present and not be overwhelmed by the sense that I have so little control over what happens tomorrow, I need that message: that the power of the people is still the power that matters most, that the earth can still heal from all that it’s gone through, and that all you can do is continue to build for the better and imagine a new, better world into existence.
* Okay, I think there’s a case for this being weirdly similar to Animal Crossing in some ways, too? Like having a boss who is more concerned about money and getting his cut of your pay, a house to upgrade, and neighbors milling around cheerfully waving at you when you come out of your door in the morning once you’ve started to make connections.
So, yeah, if that sweetens the pot at all…
My Time at Sandrock (Pathea Games, 2023) is available on Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5, XBox One and XBox Series X and Series S, and PC/Steam Deck.
I play it on the Steam Deck, if that helps at all.
Pathea Games likely has no idea I exist and this wasn’t sponsored.
I loved reading about this game, it sounds so good! Here for more hopeful post-apocalyptic stories