Amberspire

Amberspire feels like playing a one-person board game, and I mean that in the best way possible. Players roll dice to see whether they get resources or not, buildings must be placed correctly to receive said resources, and even the negative effects that can occur happen either via dice rolls or random events which could very well just be drawing cards from an event deck. It's lovely.

90 minutes in, been yelling at the dice for 60 of those, they’ve captured the board game experience perfectly (Also note, had issues booting the game after installing, good ol reboot the pc fixed it)

I was drawn in by the designer's notes online. At first play, mostly it's what it says it is - a dice-based, geometry-based city builder with a chill vibe, where I can see the designer's notions in the way the game plays, collecting dice, rolling dice, placing dice. The highlighted animation of the changes each turn was good for the feel of what was going on. I use keyboard + mouse controls. One of the awkward points with the WASD map scrolling is that it was too easy for me to hit X when I meant S, putting the game in "destroy a building" mode without my intention. Being able to zoom out is something I haven't yet figured out, but maybe ... mouse wheel? A broader view would help. I'll try that next time.

I found the dice mechanics of Amberspire very fun to mess around with even as a non board game player! Even though there are a ton of resources to juggle in the game, the way that they are acquired through simple dice rolling prevented me from feeling overwhelmed. The progression system is very clear and helped me easily identify what goals I needed to achieve and what tasks I needed to focus on to make forward progress. At the same time, the numerous options for achieving any goal, big or small, made the game feel very dynamic and non-linear. The beautiful atmosphere and theme of the game were the icing on the cake. Well conceived and well executed!

Game is a pitiful and far too easy experience with far too little depth compared to their previous game. How did their design fall so far?

Truly floored by this game. I was struggling with over 150 weather dice. But I stuck through it never giving up. My city hit its golden age and I was so dang happy

back in the flash games days I used to play a “game” in the web browser that was a simulation of cell life, there wasn’t any real way to win, but it was interesting to see the patterns that a few simple rules could create. This is kind of like that except an actual game thats fun to play with the aesthetic sensibility of the coolest zine you got from the small press fair. This is not what I would call I high-stakes game, but not every game needs to be and damn if it doesn’t scratch that old minesweeper-in-another-window itch. A Good Game!

This is a great pocket city builder and good value for its price. The polished old-school visuals give it the feel of an early console game like Sim City but refined for modern resolutions. It’s also very old school in that it has an electronic game manual, presented like a game manual, instead of a tutorial. Gameplay has a good loop to it once you get to grips with the mechanics, and will the game does let you experiment and learn from your mistakes, reading the manual for the first few turns is going to get you past the initial hurdles.

an interesting, relaxing and contemplative take on a city-builder. Like watching a city grow from your balcony as buildings rise and fall and the skyline shifts and the weather changes day to day. You balance hard interlocking resource chains with the organic ebb and flow of your city, like how a city planner might - but at a sort of poetic remove.

I roll the dice and the city grows. Remember, instability only matters if you're a coward.