Amber Isle

The camera angles make this unplayable. I really, really, REALLY love the concept of being a shopkeeper dino, but the camera angles make it so difficult. There's also the lack of options to create specific playable dinos, there not so great clothing options - they all look super weird and clunky, it feels like the tutorial goes on for ages and ages, which is not very cozy-like imo, the weird arrow keys to equip your tools, and then back to the awful camera angles - or, well, angle, since there's no option to change it. It feels like an early release game, but has been published for nearly two years? I'm so disappointed. This game is absolutely amazing in theory, but the devs totally flunked here. I'll be refunding, unfortunately :/

If you want this game, BUY IT ON SALE. Here's what I think: Pros: -Cute Half-Baked Dinosaurs -Great Character Customization -Crafting Cons: -EXTREMELY LONG TUTORIAL!!! -Extremely Buggy -Horrible Camera Mechanics -Extremely Buggy Shop Keeping Customization -Half Baked Story Feeling (this is based off of 3 hours of gameplay) I definitely wouldn't buy it for 24.99. If you want it, wait for a Steam sale.

Game took forever to 100%, had a bug where one of the villagers was at level 5 but my save was allegedly bugged and I didn't get the last crafting recipe. Way I fixed this was inviting to hang out, crafting or giving items they hated, and I eventually got the last achievements. It's really cute, simple and addicting. Cheers!

I really wanted to like the game, and on some level, I do. But the constant bugs during the beginning (including one where I have to restart my unsaved games) are just pushing me to not recommend the game in its current state. Really a shame, because I like the customization, the shop keeper aspect and the characters seem cute.

a nice lil game to just unwind and enjoy. no need to race the clock to do things (exept for special requests) a simple game of management, crafting and resource collecting. each creature is unique and cute. (being a graduate of 3d animation) i love the environment and characters. the character creation has a good choice of options and even premade ones you can finagle to your liking. tho i did have the mayor t-pose and slide during his ''walk'' wich was funny. another scene also happened with the mayor, he was looking at the wall while talking to me and other characters, he sorta fixed himself when he was talking to just me, not sure if it was supposed to be like that or not. i did get some minor camera glitches (i think it colided with an invisible wall) a friend watched me play it and got it. i did enjoy playing and will continue to play this fun lil game :)

Amber Isle is a fascinating achievement showing how artists can make a game that barely works and it can still be ok. The gameplay itself is fun, similar to other cozy games of the style. You get resources, you make stuff, you open your shop, rinse and repeat. The character designs are also great, so it's fun to meet new dinos and get them all moved in. It is also, somehow, programmed in the most baffling way I have ever seen a game do it. This game flip flops between being a game for controller and a game for keyboard and mouse almost CONSTANTLY. If you're out travelling and gathering resources, controller is the only way to play, as the original hotkeys for keyboard are really, really bad. But the movement on controller is too finicky for the building sections or for basic character customization, requiring a mouse for precise inputs. The camera never really figures out what it's doing, either. Some items and interactables are only visible in a top down POV, which looks, objectively, terrible. Climbing a hill towards the camera causes it to freak out and clip into your model until you're at the top of the hill. There's no outlines for NPC models behind objects, so finding a specific character on the map (especially in wooded areas) comes down to finding their icon on the minimap and mashing interact until you can talk to them. There's a waterfall with a "secret" behind it that isn't modeled properly, so going to a spot high up next to the waterfall just completely shows the thing behind it. This game is incredible because I genuinely don't understand how it functions most of the time. But if you like dinosaurs and cute characters and just need something to grind out, it's worth getting on sale!

I was very on-and-off with this game for a while. Not due to any fault of the game itself but more so my own. The game itself is very light, casual, and almost works as a good start-and-stop game if you've got the mental for it. The closest similarity I can draw to it is Animal Crossing. A lot of interacting with villagers, collecting resources, and crafting. Though it's big divergence is in store management. You own a store on the island where you can sell things you make in order to make money. If a game called Recettear is familiar to you, it's similar to that: customers enter your store; automatically buy things on display; can bring items to you and attempt to haggle with you; or ask for custom orders for a later date. I absolutely love the gameplay loop, spending my mornings on the town to collect resources and get closer to islanders and spending the rest of the day selling and fulfilling custom orders. The money you earned can also be used to help revitalize the island. You can buy outdoor furniture and plants as well as invite new islanders to live in certain areas of the island. The game is a little rough around the edges in a few areas. For instance, you can't place outdoor fixtures on top of a gatherable resource (like a tree stump or stone) until you go out and destroy it. Of course this also means that resource doesn't respawn which is why I assume that is the case. A lot of my grievances from this game came from it's UI. It's very annoying to navigate with a controller, to a point where I just started using my mouse in menus and controller when exploring the island. Crafting can also be somewhat of a pain. The game has refined materials that require a certain amount of base materials. Turing raw plants into fiber or paper or wood into wooden planks for instance. Of course some of these materials are required for later items. However, if I wanted to make a piece of furniture that requires wooden planks, I have to manually craft the wooden planks first and then make the furniture rather than selecting the furniture and it auto taking from my wood. It may sound like I'm lazy (and while that may be the case) but the hurdles involved with these better materials just made me not craft these better items because I didn't know I could craft them. The only time I really went out of my way to craft them was when they were in custom orders. There were a few other hang ups I had as well, the detection for talking and interacting with NPCs in the island felt spotty, I had a few camera shake-ups, and I even managed to see an NPC T-Pose but ultimately I don't think it's anything that breaks the game. Amber Isle has that "home-cooked feel" vibe, is the best way I can describe it. While it seems like I'm hung up on the negatives, it's only because I care and I really want this game to be the best game it can be. I love this game. It's very cute and charming, and honestly kind of awakened some sort of dinosaur obsession within me. While I'm technically "done" with the story, I still want to keep playing. Try and make my island the best it can be to the best of my abilities. Big recommend to anybody.

game so cute and fun i genuenly got addicted for a bit.

I am in love with this game. The art style is adorable, I love the characters, the craftables are SO CUTE. I feel as if the progression is even and fair. I only have a few issues with it, and these obviously haven't been dealbreakers. For one, the camera controls are lacking and can be awkward, especially when decorating your shop or the different regions. There are a few interactions that are a bit awkwardly coded, not sure if they're bugs or what. Just feels as if they lack polish. Shop rank could use some minor adjustments. And lastly, the tutorial lasts way too long. I remember thinking "please just let me play the game by myself already." Some of the negatives could be dealbreakers for some people, but I think it's worth a shot to push past them because this game is lovely and charming and so so cute and fun!!

I'm absolutely obsessed with this game. It's so cute, I stream this game to my boyfriend while I play it and we both love paleo-media and every time we see a new character we have a fun little time trying to guess what kind of dinosaur they are. We were stuck on what Adi was when we first saw him, he's a Megalosaurus however he looks like a yutyrannus/albertosaurus because he looks slightly fluffy. When coral first appeared, we put our knowledge to use, "she's some kind of mosasaur" "a pliosaur?" "no she's got a longer neck surely she's a plesiosaur or something alike that genus". [b]I guessed correctly first ofc[/b]. She was a plesiosaur, and so far she is our favourite character. I love the aspect of each paleofolk you meet having different preferences, personalities and attributes to strengthen their character. It shows a lot of effort was put into this game. This is definitely a keeper!