My Time at Portia

Farming a Cosy Utopia: A Regenerative Escape to Simpler Times

Farming games such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, and My Time at Portia are presented here as a form of utopian narrative and "regenerative play," capable of fostering ecological awareness and emotional well-being.

• The report argues that farming games such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, and My Time at Portia function as "regenerative play," using Eden-style nostalgia to offer a calm, community-centred alternative to capitalist and urban pressures.
• The analysis is qualitative, built on close readings of gameplay design and narrative structure rather than empirical measurement, and it draws on the utopian tradition beginning with Thomas More's Utopia (1516).
• Olive Town is read as a double-edged ecological critique: its pastoral utopia culminates in a luxury cruise liner docking at the port, exposing capitalist tourism as a corrupting force that players themselves enable.