My Time At Portia is a game that doesn’t need a walkthrough, since most of the ‘main quest’ is rather self-explanatory, but some things can be a bit obscure or daunting for a new player. This guide aims to be a spoiler-free source of information for those who wish to dive into the game with some preparation or use those little quality-of-life features that aren’t fully explained in-game.

It’s put together as a collection of hints, ideas and suggestions on how to get the most out of your experience when playing My Time At Portia (hereafter abbreviated as simply ‘Portia’), and to boot Higgins off the number one spot as quickly as possible. However, there is no real need to do so, and arguably the best tip a new player can be given is to simply take his/her time and enjoy the game. There’s no hard time limits, and all objectives can be done easily in the very generous amount of time the game gives you.

That said, let’s get the efficiency of that shoddy little workshop up to snuff!

Character generation is pretty much straightforward, but do be advised that while you’ll be able to change your hairstyle later (for a fee), there is no way to alter your facial features once decided.

As soon as you step off the boat, go ahead and follow Presley, but be sure to pick up any branches and stones lying around on the way. If you go too far, the game will put you back on the path, but you can snatch a few things before you reach the workshop. The game will put you to sleep right after, so all the stamina you have will be refilled – might as well use it for gathering so you can get those tools made more quickly.

In the options menu, set your game speed to 50%. This gives you a longer day to work in. Even if your stamina can’t sustain you through the long hours at start, it does mean you can travel and explore longer, as well as get to know more people, visit shops, etcetera. Depleted stamina doesn’t mean your day is over, you can still do lots of things.

Fix your house. Seriously, this needs to be one of your absolute priorities. As long as your house isn’t fixed, you’ll receive sharp penalties to your total stamina, and stamina is essential in the early game. It requires regular, unprocessed wood, so get to logging.

Hang your workshop licence on the wall inside your house, it boosts your max stamina, which, again, is very important in the early game. Also place furniture and decorations as they give bonuses. Those bonuses max out, but the cap increases as your house grows and there is no penalty for going over the cap, it’s just unused potential.

Use the Hardwood you get when meeting Mars for your Practice Sword and nothing else. You won’t be able to gather more right away. Don’t think you’ll just be able to use tools for fighting, even though their attack stat is higher, they’re a poor choice.

At your first level up, I’d suggest first going for the XP bonuses, since more XP means more levels, means more skills, and the initial investment will provide returns after a few levels. You can always acupuncture those skills away once you’re very high level. Then, it’s best to focus on the gathering tree to mitigate stamina costs for the axe and pick, and to provide opportunities for double and rare loot. I’d leave the Social tree alone for now. You’ll probably be too busy to make much use of it.

When you get free rein of the city, you’re best to spend the early hours the same way: first, refuel and resupply your crafting stations, then make a beeline for the Commerce Guild so you can get there before 08:00. Wait at the door like a baby boomer at a black Friday sale, and enter as soon as the clock strikes eight, so you can snatch a commission before Higgins does. If you need some time to think, then hold the commission you’re interested in open (don’t click accept or reject yet). As long as you’re looking at it, Higgins can’t steal it. Only when that’s done, can you start working on your assignments and commissions, gather and explore, etcetera. Try to finish and turn in your commission the same day you accepted it so you can rush to the Commerce Guild and nab a commission right away the next day. This means you’re sometimes better off choosing an easy, but lower-paying commission than a high-paying one which will take more than a day to complete. At the end of the day, again refuel and resupply your crafting stations so they can work through the night.

Don’t be disheartened when you see that your workshop has a pathetic number of points in the beginning. Remember, Higgins is a household name in Portia, and has a fully functioning workshop in the city. You start out unknown, with a house full of holes out in the boonies. You’ll have to work to surpass him, but it’s more than doable as the game progresses.

Don’t worry about food in this game, or better, don’t worry about hunger. Your character does not need to eat to live, but food does provide health or stamina recovery, and is needed for efficient gifting.

There is currently no more penalty for keeling over from exhaustion, so don’t sweat it if you can’t make it home before three. You’ll just collapse and magically wake up in your bed the following morning, with no stamina penalty or bill from the Joja company. Make the most out of your day.

Once you can afford it, the massage chair is the best purchase you’ll ever make. It allows you to regain your stamina much, much faster than regular sitting and can completely restore your stamina in an hour or two, which is extremely useful for some late-night logging for your crafting stations, recovery after a hard dungeon, or time spent waiting for crafting to complete.

Try not to sell stuff, unless you’re certain it’s pure vendor trash (like loot from Bandirats). I know, ‘but then how do I make money’? By fulfilling commissions first and foremost, and by fishing second. Fishing is, in terms of investment for gains, the best activity you can perform for pure gol gain. Even the most complex items you can fabricate sell for a pittance and they require time, effort and ingredients, meaning you should either use them yourself or make them as commissions. Fishing requires a rod, some cheap bait, and some stamina. If you have hours and stamina left over during the day, go fishing and sell your haul for big money. If you’re lucky enough to catch a King fish, they go for five thousand a pop, which is obscene, but even if you don’t, you can earn a few thousand gols with just a few hours of fishing, especially once the Collapsed Wasteland unlocks where you can catch Wise Fish easily, which go for a few hundred apiece. You can also turn all your leftover stone into hundreds of stone stools and then sell those for an easy buck and a decluttering of your workspace.

There’s no need to bother with expanding your home unless it’s necessary. Give absolute priority to your worktable, then your Assembly Station (level 2 only, level 3 can wait) and finally all the rest. Upgrading your home increases the furniture stat boost cap, but by the time you’re ready to do this, the cap won’t make much of a difference, so don’t rush for that home upgrade. Same goes for terrain. It’s very, very expensive so only expand when you really need it. Be advised that your level 2 Assembly Station requires a substantially larger space than the lower level variant.

You can only take one regular commission per day, but one main quest commission at a time. This means you can complete only one regular commission every day, but can complete several main quest commissions in a single day. Preparing for the Dee Dee Transport job before fixing the Bridge to Amber Island or preparing for the Portia Bridge construction before fixing the crashed space ship, for instance, can potentially net you ludicrous rewards as you complete several in a day. Don’t feel bad for Higgins, he deserves everything he gets for sometimes violating Guild rules and taking two commissions at once.

There are no (regular) commissions during the weekend, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check the Guild. During the weekend, there are Inspection trials which can give you a sizeable reward for very little time and zero effort investment. Mind you, magnifying glasses are, for some strange reason, consumed when you ask for a hint, so don’t do it lightly. Be advised that Main Quest commissions will still be available during the weekend, so don’t wait until Monday to turn those in and snatch new ones.

You can upgrade your backpack size with a flat fee of gols, and this can be done anywhere. Mind that there are several pages of rows you can unlock, but they get more expensive as you open more.

Participate in Festival Days. The rewards are often unique and you can pick up loads of interesting things. The Fishing Festival, for instance, will spawn many different types of fish in one spot and will seriously boost the chance of catching Emperor or King variants. And as pointed out in the Social section, festivals are good for giving gifts since the points value doubles and you’ll have loads of people together in one place.

If you see a mission marker somewhere in an obscured part of the map and you don’t have any missions active that logically could be responsible for it, that means it’s very likely a spot where you can place a Dee Dee Stop. Place Dee Dee Stops even though you’ve already completed the relevant mission. It’ll save you lots of useless back-and-forthing. It’s not a bad idea to carry one or two around every time you go far into uncharted territory, especially if it’s in the direction of a mysterious mission marker.

While upgrading buildings at A&G Construction costs money, moving them is free, so you can move your house closer to the fence in the early game and gain some space without having to buy a costly plot extension or awkwardly cramming planter boxes between your house and fence.

Your tools seem to be far more powerful than your weapons, but don’t be fooled. Your weapons’ attack stat may be lower, but they attack much faster. Attacks with tools will be constantly interrupted, so go ahead and make (and use) that practice sword even though you think you’re being clever by using tools because they have a higher attack stat. However…

… Your ability to fell certain trees or break certain logs isn’t the direct result of the level of your tools, it’s the result of your attack stat. Tools increase it significantly, but you can technically harvest resources too resistant for your current tools by upgrading your attack stat. It’s much more efficient to just upgrade your tools, but it is possible.

When logging, cutting down the tree trunks gives regular wood and (sometimes) hardwood, but ironwood can only be gained by also chopping up the stumps. This does increase the tree’s respawn time so it’s best to do this when you’re a bit farther from home.

Don’t bother kicking trees for honey and the like unless you want to. Rubber fruits and cocoons are the only useful reasons for kicking (non-apple) trees and you don’t need a whole lot in the early game, so just kick them down to order. You’ll also need a few cocoons to make fishing rods, but once you can build iron tools, you can just chop down the bigger trees and they’ll drop the honey and rubber and cocoons, along with their lumber, and it requires less stamina that way.

Even though you can gather ridiculous amounts of stone by ruin diving, do occasionally quarry regular boulders in the overworld as well, it’s the only way to reliably get marble, or the more rare semiprecious stones like Blood Stone and Topaz. Some rocks in the Collapsed Wasteland even provide Nitre. The large blue crystals can occasionally drop a Sapphire.

Scoop the poop whenever you find it. Feces isn’t hard to come by, but there’s a limited supply per day and you’ll need it for fertilizer once you start farming more intensively (and you will). There’s usually a few cowpats and some horse manure in the pastures near McDonald’s farm, and you can bag llama poop in the fields next to your workshop. Take some along whenever you pass by, it will also provide seeds for the expert excrement explorer, and there’s also a tiny chance of being rewarded with a Diamond. Wash it first, though.

Apples are a net gain in stamina, even when raw (they give more stamina than they use up by tree-kicking) and once you’ve built a drying rack, you can produce dried apple slices, which remain useful throughout the game because they restore a percentage of stamina rather than a flat amount. The drying rack, by the way, is not included in the Assembly Station’s diagrams but is tucked away as a recipe in your worktable (level 2 required). Dried blade fish are Pinky’s favourite treats, incidentally.

You can break down hardwood into regular wood. This is extremely useful in the later game when you’re sitting on stores of hardwood but keep running low on regular wood to fuel your furnaces. You can also trade stone for wood at A&G construction if you've got a surplus and need wood.

Some recipes require unprocessed bars, but none require unprocessed ores, so don’t keep them in stock for no reason. Mind that iron ore is used in several metals, so don’t use it all up at once, especially once you start needing carbon steel.

You don’t have to use just one of every crafting station, in fact, you shouldn’t. Apart from possibly the Skiver, you need several copies of everything else, or you won’t be able to keep up with your materials needs. Furnaces and Cutters especially are extremely important to have several of, or your workshop will not be able to maintain any sort of momentum. And divide the work. If you need to craft ten Bronze Plates, don’t craft all ten at a single station, craft five at each if you have two.

Your crafting stations should never be idle. Perhaps the Skiver can get away with putting its proverbial feet up for a bit, but the rest of your stations should always be processing. Furnaces should be churning out bars, Grinders should be producing pipes, and Cutters should be slicing plates. Plates especially take a long time and are used very often from the Dee Dee Stop-stage onward. Once you progress to the Steel age, you’ll be needing an immense amount of Carbon Steel. At one point, I had four industrial furnaces all cranking out carbon steel while my older furnaces were busy producing charcoal non-stop, and I still couldn’t keep up with demand. If you have reserves, you can complete projects much more quickly than you could if you still needed to start smelting and slicing. Don’t forget to refuel your stations often, in the morning and/or before hitting the rack.

Another thing that should never be idle is the Research Centre. As soon as you have five or more data discs, let Merlin and Petra research things for you. Time the Research Centre isn’t researching is time wasted, and if you keep them busy all the time, you shouldn’t find yourself pressed to provide extra discs to expedite research. Data discs can be found randomly by mining, which you’ll be doing anyway, so you should have a healthy supply. Carry them in your inventory always, it saves you trips back to your workshop when you get a commission that requires you to hand in discs. Try to maintain some sort of order, do the five-disc research projects first, then the ten-discs and then the twenty-disc ones. The reason for this is that you’ll need the stations provided by the small projects to produce the ones made available by the larger ones.

A tidy workshop is a safe workshop, and an efficient one. Try to keep some order in the positioning if your crafting stations and your storage, especially that last one. It may seem tempting to just throw all your stuff in any old storage box, but this will become a nightmare down the line. Sure, your crafting stations can now process ingredients directly from storage (and thank you so much for that, Pathea!), but you’ll still need to retrieve individual materials for your Assembly Station, your farms, commissions, assembling relics, gifting, etcetera. Having stuff stored all over the place is pure misery and will bite you on the behind very hard and very often in the long run.

I tend to use the following chests. If you have a limited amount of metal chests, make the higher ones a priority.

- one chest for ores and bars, placed next to the Assembly Station
- one chest for processed items, like pipes and plates and pulleys and all that, also in the same place
- one chest for wooden items, both unprocessed and processed
- one chest for high-tech items, like chipsets, parts, power stones), also in the same place
- one chest for fish, near my food processing
- two or even three chests for food items, near food processing
- one chest for farming stuff (seeds, fertilizer, soil, etcetera) next to my planter boxes
- one chest for fabric and textiles, placed near the Skivers
- three or more chests for relic parts, placed anywhere they’re not in the way
- two chests for equipment items, placed in the house to keep them from cluttering the yard
- as many chests as I need for monster loot, badges, and other vendor trash

Remember that you can use the Sort All button in the workshop to immediately place all your inventory items together in their respective storage chests.

You don’t have to run to every individual chest in your workshop, so name them accordingly and then just select them from the drop-down menu whenever you open any chest.

Old Parts can be found by digging in abandoned ruins, but it’s usually more lucrative to run the second part of the Hazardous Ruins, since it takes three hours for around 20 Old Parts per run, plus some other nice relics.

Even though Power Stones may be an easy choice as gifts (see the Social section) since so many people get a relation boost from them, resist the temptation to carry them along and hand them out to whomever. You need them to fuel your stations and the hunger will only grow as the game goes on.

Since combat in Portia is somewhat lacking in strategy, it leaves little room for player skill. This means that equipment is important. Personally, I give absolute priority to equipping accessories which increase Critical Chance. Equipping three +10% accessories means that 35% of your hits will do 250% damage (without Melee Mastery). This is exponentially more useful than an increase to attack or defence. Sunglasses are easy to make and give +10%, and some of the inspection rewards also give +10%. You can unfortunately no longer equip three pairs of sunglasses since 1.0.

Rare enemies can be fairly easily spawned by first slaughtering a group of monsters like a total genocidal maniac and then waiting for them to respawn by moving a bit further away. There will almost always be a rare variant among them. Some can put up a serious fight, so beware, but earlier ones, like the Cotton Llama, can simply be stunlocked as long as you have stamina and attack relentlessly. They all drop diverse loot randomly, but a Flexible Fibre drop is guaranteed, and you can use those to purchase neato clothing at Carol’s shop.

Don’t forget the Civil Corps. If you need dungeon loot but can’t be arsed to spend hours and health items on a dungeon run, the Civil Corps can go ruin dive for you and bring back loot – at a price. The same goes for monster loot.

Always empty your backpack apart from health- and stamina-restoring items before going on a dungeon run, especially in the beginning of the game when backpack space is at a premium.

Time stands still in a dungeon, so don’t worry about rushing through, you can take your time to complete it unless the level itself is on a timer. Every phase of a dungeon will simply subtract a fixed number of hours to complete.

If you complete a story dungeon (so not the persistent ones like the Hazardous Ruins), you usually can’t go back to it, so make sure everything’s done and gathered before you take on the boss.

Don’t forget your local holy rollers. The Church of the Light is the only place where you can purchase certain seeds, and large planter boxes, as well as irrigation flooring and a fertilizer station. Rainbow flower is especially interesting to plant as it allows you to make pigments which normally cost an arm and a leg in the beginning. They require nitre too, so plant a tree or two. If you need Church stuff on days other than Tuesday, you can always trade for them in the actual church building, though this requires a slightly tedious climb.

Fertilizer doesn’t speed up crop growth but it does increase crop yield. You’ll need to weigh for yourself whether or not it’s worth it, since fertilizer’s a bit costly to buy and requires ingredients which aren’t in huge supply at first. I tend to fertilize all my planter boxes regularly, but some prefer not to. Once you have the fertilizer Storage Tank from the Church, the process becomes less tedious.

The Fertilizer Storage Tank works as follows: place four pieces of Irrigation Flooring on the ground in a square. Then place the Tank on top so it rests entirely on Irrigation Flooring. Then make an uninterrupted path of Irrigation Flooring, placing your Planter Boxes on top, making sure that the entire planter box rests on Irrigation Flooring, so a Large Planter Box needs to be positioned perfectly on top of four panels of flooring. Then just dump your fertilizer into the Storage Tank and Bob’s your uncle.

Giving gifts is nice if you can afford it, but don’t pay through the nose just to give that one present to your waifu or husbando. I’ve taken some time to list the most interesting gifts for every NPC in terms of price/quality and renewability. It’s nice to give Emily a helpful farming book and see that +15 pop up, but if you have to play darts for hours just to get a single copy, you’re not being very efficient.

So here’s my personal list. You may not agree with everything, but I tried to be as much ‘bang for buck’ as possible. Nearly everyone loves roses and nearly everyone likes power stones, but those aren’t viable unless you have absolutely no alternative, because you can only buy one of the former per day, and you need the latter for refuelling.

Giving gifts on a festival day doubles the bonus, on a birthday, the bonus triples. I also list alternatives which may give only modest boosts but are cheap, plentiful, and only require a few clicks to come by. On festival days, bring lots of gifts, not just because they’re worth double the points, but also because you’ll have almost everyone together in one place.

Aadit (20/03): Talisman +10. Some Wood, some Marble, and that’s all you need for a nice bonus. Alternatively, Hardwood Plank +6, but really, make Talismans.

Abu (02/02): Royal Honey +12. Not as rare as the game makes it seem, logging large trees will usually provide a few copies, or kick some apple trees for Aroma Apple +12. Alternatively, Honey +4. But seriously, why bother.

Ack (No birthday… buildday?): Copper Coil +10 or Iron Pan +10. Slightly resource-intensive to make, but a better alternative than the limited-supply items he otherwise needs. The Coil costs less but requires an intermediate step (producing Copper Wire). Alternatively, you can just gift him the Copper Wire +4.

Albert (10/02): Talisman +8. Cheap, plentiful, easy to make. Alternatively, Yellow Bow Tie +6 but these may be better given to Antoine and Talismans are ridiculously easy to manufacture anyway. Or give him Spicy Fish Soup +10, won during the Fishing Festival.

Alice (01/03): Crystal Necklace +10. Fairly easy to produce after completing the Bridge to Amber Island. Alternatively, Honey +6, easily found by kicking big trees.

Antoine (10/01): Yellow Bow Tie +8. You’ll have a lot of those if you kill the Prinn… er, Slurpees in the Collapsed Wasteland for their Blue Leather. Alternatively, Crystal +6, harvested on Amber Island.

Arlo (05/03): Seafood Noodles +12. Once you have the cooking set, this will be relatively easy to make, using 1 fish, 1 flour and 1 spice. Either that, or Arm Stretcher +12 but this does require springs, which may be in short supply at times. A long way down is the alternative, Practice Sword +3.

Carol (07/02): Pigments +10 are your easiest and most reliable bet. Just buy them off her and re-gift them. It’s a rare store-owner who likes getting his own goods, but there you go. Strangely, Pigments alone give just as much as her other loved gifts, which require them. Not complaining, mind. Alternatively, Thread +4

Dana (07/01): Nori Burrito +10, which isn’t all that expensive at Martha’s Bakery. Alternatively, Wooden Table +6, buy from Paulie.

Dawa (15/03): Fish Porridge +10 or Crystal Necklace +10. Both easy to make with cheap ingredients. Alternatively, Shell Necklace +8.

Django (15/01): Paper Flower +10. Only costs a hundred gols at Alice’ store, and all his other high-yield gifts require much more investment. Alternatively, if you really must, Rainbow Lemonade +6

Dolly (25/01): Balloon +8, cheap at Total Tools, or Fruit Salad +10, but this requires Salad Sauce and work. Once you have access to Apricots, you can vary with Dried Apricot +10.

Emily (17/01): Fruit Salad +10. Only requires Salad Sauce and two fruits. Need the Cooking Set though. Alternatively, Pumpkin Steamed Rice +6. Its ingredients are cheaper (no Salad Sauce) but the yield is smaller, or Egg +2. Good thing she has a lot of missions, but you can also buy Pumpkin Pie +10 for a good price, sadly only in Spring.

Erwa (15/03): Dark Coffee Table +15. Requires some work making hardwood planks and bronze pipes, but all the other options are more difficult to get a hold of. Alternatively, Clothing Basket +5, a hundred gols at Paulie’s store.

Gale (20/01): Tea Table +10, using only Iron Bars and Wooden Boards. No quick-and-easy alternatives exist.

Ginger (01/04): Almost impossible to get good mileage out of any gift for her, but if you must, Rainbow Lemonade +2 costs only a fifty at the food store or is easily blended once you find lemons. But really, get her mood up by talking to her as you progress through every stage of the Main Quest and completing her missions. It might even be more efficient to boost her mood through befriending Gust and/or Gale.

Gust (11/02): Blade Fish Mushroom Soup +12. A bit tricky to make, but renewable and cheap, especially once you can harvest Bamboo Papaya at the Collapsed Wasteland. Alternatively, Salty Grilled Catfish +6 or Aroma Apple +6. You can also gift Bacon Fish Roll +15 after winning some at the Fishing Festival.

Higgins (??/??): Punch to the Face -10. Alternatively, Kick to the Groin -15.

Isaac (16/04): Tea Table +10. Only requires Iron Bars and Wooden Boards. Alternatively, Stone Table +6, quickly thrown together from Stone and Marble.

Jack: Aroma Apple +10 or Balloon +8. Find one by kicking apple trees, buy the other at Total Tools for a pittance.

Lee: Mushroom Crepe with Fruit Sauce +10, bought for cheap at Martha’s Bakery. Can also be made with the Cooking Set, but why would you? Alternatives aren’t really needed here, but you could also foist him with some Rainbow Lemonade[+6] if you feel like changing it up.

Liuwa (16/03): Panbat Mask +12 or Fluffy Pendant+12. Just go slaughter some panbats and fell large trees and you should have enough Bat Wings and Cocoons to slap a few Masks together, kill a few Llamas and you’ll have Colourful Fur and stuff to make rope with so you can make a few Fluffy Pendants. Alternatively, Sunglasses +12 but those require Eyeglasses, which are more limited in supply. Nearest one-click alternative is Animal Bones +2 but you shouldn’t need any alternatives, really.

Lucy (07/03): Photo Album +10, which requires only Wood and Fiber Cloth, or Crystal Necklace +10, easy to make with Crystal and Wild Cocoon. Alternatively, Crystal +6.

Mars (18/02): Bubblefish Stew +12. Catch some Bubblefish near the harbour and buy some Tea and Salt off Sophie and you’re good to go. Alternatively, Catfish +4.

Martha (23/01): Seafood Paella +12 or Shrimp and Cheese on Rice +10. Both relatively easy and cheap to produce. Alternatively, Baked Bread +8, another cheap gift from the owner’s own store. If you like it so much, then just bake more for yourself, but yeah…

McDonald (04/01): Water Bucket +10, requires only two Iron Bars and two Rubber Fruits. Alternatively, Wooden Basket +2, but…

Mei (11/03): Photo Album +12, not very difficult to make for the bonus, just Wood and Fibre Cloth. Alternatively, Crystal +6.

Merlin (21/04): Strange Soup +10, requires an annoying hodgepodge of ingredients but it’s the only real option we’ve got. Alternatively, Small Chair +6. You can also gift her a Chipset +10 which can be found in the Hazardous Ruins or traded for data discs at the Research Centre.

Mint (01/01): Blade Fish Mushroom Soup +12, requires Blade Fish, which makes it compete with Pinky, but you’ll just need to fish some more. You can also go for Flower Carpet +8 when you have the Advanced Skiver available. Alternatively, Blade Fish +4.

Molly (25/01): Fruit Tart, buy at Martha’s Bakery for forty gol during rainy days or make it with the Cooking Set if you’re cheap. Alternatively, Shell +2.

Mysterious Man: Mysterious Man don’t give a crap about your crummy gifts, punk.

Nora (05/04): Seafood Noodles +12, needs the Cooking Set and some Fish, Flour and spice of your choice. Alternatively, Rainbow Lemonade +4, buy at Django’s store.

Oaks (08/02): Smoked Fish Roll +12, needs the Cooking Set and is made by combining 2 Catfish, 1 Cumin and 1 Salt. Alternatively, Roasted Meat +6.

Paulie (25/04): Simple Desk +10 is a good option, just needs Wooden Boards and Tree Sap. Alternatively, Wooden Storage +6 but this seems a much inferior alternative to Simple Desk, and less manly.

Petra (11/04): Creamy Salmon Stew +10, made with the Cooking Set by combining 1 Golden Salmon, 1 Milk and 1 Spice or Salt. Alternatively, Crystal +6. Mind that Creamy Salmon Stew is one of the prizes at the fishing festival.

Phyllis (20/02): Seafood Noodles +12, what a popular dish. Alternatively, Talisman +10, made by throwing some Wood and Marble together. In fact, the Talisman might even be the better choice here. You can also quickly buy an Ointment +6 at her own store if you want to make it even easier on yourself.

Pinky (28/03): Dried Blade Fish +12. Catch a few, dry them, you can give her some every day. Alternatively, any type of fresh fish, especially Emperor variants. Gladiator, Blue Macherel and Wise Fish yield best results, both regular and Emperor.

Polly (25/01): Casual Hoodie +12. Somewhat intensive on resources to make, but all are renewable, Colourful Fur and Fibre Cloth are easy to get a hold of. Alternatively, Dried Apricot +10 but Apricots only come around later in the game.

Presley (23/02): Seafood Stew Mix +15 is the only renewable high-tier gift for Presley and it’s a bit of an annoyance to make, by adding two different types of fish and then adding three different ingredients which aren’t Sugar, Salt or any spice. An alternative is Salty Grilled Catfish +6.

Qiwa (16/03): You can go for Seafood Stew Mix +15 for him too, but if you’ve caught a few Wise Fish +10, give those instead. Alternatively, Salty Grilled Catfish +6. He’s like a small, fatter Presley.

QQ (09/01): Aroma Apple +12 is the easy way, or you can make him some Roast Pork With Honey +12 too, if you can get over the ick of making him a cannibal… Alternatively, Roasted Meat +6.

Remington (26/02): The only decent gifts for Remington require you to be able to make Hard Aluminum (for Leather Belt +12) or access to Mustard from the Port Station, for Supremely Spicy Spaghetti +10. It’s best to leave Remington’s high yield gifts alone for a bit and stick to his alternative, Rainbow Lemonade +4.

Russo (14/01): Not many possibilities here, but you can gift him the Dark Coffee Table +15, though this does require some materials, even if it’s only 3 Hardwood Planks and 4 Copper Pipes. There aren’t any real alternatives here.

Sam (23/03): Special Salmon Fried Rice +10 is the easiest, requiring a Cooking Set with Salmon, Rice and any spice. You can also splurge on Bamboo Incense +12, though that’s a bit pricey at Xu’s clinic. Later on, you can make Waist Pack +12 for her, but that requires you to have access to Snake Skin. Alternatives are difficult if not impossible to come by.

Sanwa (15/03): Fruit Salad +10 or Vegetable Salad +10. Relatively easy to make but require Salad Sauce. No quick and easy alternatives exist.

Scraps (27/03): Dried Blade Fish +12 is the most efficient, but you may need two drying racks if you want to keep him and Pinky fed. Alternatives are Roasted Meat +6, raw Chicken +6 or even Animal Feces +6.

Siwa (16/03): Roasted Pork with Honey +10 is not too difficult to produce with the Cooking Set, requiring only Meat, Sugar and any fruit. No viable early-game alternatives exist.

Sonia (15/02): Vegetable Salad +10 is nice, but if you’re, like, already keeping Emily and, like, several others fed, the necessary Salad Sauce will, like, stretch your wallet. An easier option is, like, Shell Necklace +8. Should you need a quick and easy alternative, Porcelain Plate +3 can be bought at the shop she works at for a paltry 40 gols.

Sophie (28/01): Water Bucket +10 is a relatively easy option, especially since you can make two and bring one to McDonald at the same time. Alternatively, Egg +2, Potato Fruit +2 or Wheat +2, which can all be bought at her shop if you need to gift something quick and easy.

Toby (28/03): Panbat Mask +10 seems the go-to choice here. If you have a surplus, you can also gift him Aroma Apple +10. You can also, failing that, gift him Dried Apple Slice +6, since you’ll be making those a lot anyway, or Apple Juice +6, a quick and easy Blender recipe.

Tody (08/04): Bubblefish +10, easily caught near the harbour for a quick and significant mood boost. You could also give Wise Fish +10 but they would probably be better used as a trade commodity. Alternatively, Banner Fish +4.

Wuwa (16/03): Rubber Tire +10 is probably the easiest choice here, especially later in the game. Alternatively, Resin +3.

Dr. Xu (14/04): Another grateful recipient of the Talisman +8. as with all Talisman Boys, there’s very little need for an alternative, but should you really need one, you could always choose Herbal Juice +6, a quick and cheap Blender recipe.

Yeye (05/02): Pumpkin Shrimp Soup +10 seems the best candidate here, requiring the Cooking Set, some Lobster Meat, a Pumpkin, and any other vegetable. Alternatively, she also likes Starlight Coral +5, which should be gatherable by then.

When on a Date, it’s important to know that you must only order five food courses, no more, no less. Ordering more, even if you ordered everything right, will result in a huge mood drop even though you picked all liked items.

Sometimes you’ll see clothing that gives you Action Points +1. This gives you additional actions during dates or play-dates and has no effect on gameplay apart from that. It’s a nice little bonus, but don’t go dropping thousands of gols on clothing that gives you an extra AP.

Becoming friends with one person will often provide a small boost to the relationships of that person’s close friends. It’s not much, but every little bit helps.

My Time at Portia is not a game that wants you to feel rushed or stressed, so don’t. This guide isn’t meant for that either, and you’re mostly free to ignore any advice that stops you from just having fun. There is no real time limit, and it doesn’t matter if you can’t beat Higgins’ workshop ranking by the end of the second month, or that you can’t get a flawless commission turn-in every day, or that you can’t get a 10-star relationship rating after the first year. Just explore, have fun, do the things you like to do, and don’t feel like you absolutely must get a perfect track record. It’s about enjoying, first and foremost, so take your time and enjoy your Time at Portia.

If there are any interesting bits of advice or pointers I’ve omitted, be sure to drop me a comment below, and don’t forget to rate this guide if you liked it. Cheers go out to user worstcase11 for a few useful additions.

Have a great time!