Amberspire

I am enjoying it so far. I find it just calming to play.

The short version: Recommended, I enjoyed it a lot, but I think full price might be a bit much for most gamers. Pros Fun, tactile, and meaningful dice rolling Enjoyable game mechanics that are fun to get into Graphics, sound, and soundtrack all have a cohesive, unique, and compelling style Excellent soundtrack A helpful set of UI tooltips that make play easy and fun Cons Shallow lore A few easily fixed UI foibles: Jerky camera, insufficient zoom-out, map recenters at end of turn The long version: Amberspire plays like a board game that would probably be too complex to play on a tabletop. This game is a lot of fun and definitely does something that I have not seen in other city builders - It bases all your progress on rolling dice. Buildings produce dice and you use those dice to build more buildings or increase your influence - influence is what makes you progress through the game. The main challenge in the game is that dice can only be used within a certain range of your buildings, so you have to create a cleverly overlapping pattern of buildings that can support each other. Sometimes you will roll a resource that you don't need, so to avoid wasting it, you will build structures that you weren't planning on. This creates a fun generativity to the game. There is a very helpful set of UI tips that helps you tell which kind of buildings influence each other and where resources can be used. Getting things right feels good because you can actually lock buildings out of the resources they need. A set of "weather dice" at the end of each cycle create adverse effects that you have to contend with. In the later game, fog can descend on your city and actually deactivate structures. Battling these effects can become challenging and feels good when you manage to overcome them. A few UI issues, all of which could be easily corrected and didn't stop me from enjoying the game: First, the map panning seems to snap to the city's grid which makes it feel jerky. Second, I wish you could zoom out more. Finally, at the end of each turn, the game pans back to the center of the map. This is unnecessary and makes you lose your place on the map. The game is fairly bug free, but I encountered a couple of bugs. In one bug, the tooltip that shows you where a dice can be used does not light up until you deselect and re-select the dice. A more serious bug prevented me from activating my hazard removal buildings when I got very close to the edge of the map. This only occurred in very late-game, so I can see why it was missed. The atmosphere of the game is quite unique, embellished by a great soundtrack. The art, city architecture, and factions in the game give you a vague sense of an enormously ancient universe where humans have been inhabiting space for eons. The map looks really nice with a drab adobe color scheme that gives off an archaic vibe - you can't quite tell if you are looking at an ancient ruin or a sci-fi futuristic city. This is a very compelling theme that I have not seen before. Unfortunately, despite this setup, the lore does not feel very deep. I can't recall any moment when a citizen of my city actually talks to me directly. This is yet another game that could have kicked-up its immersion by 300% with just a few hours-worth of voice acting. Random events are generated by certain dice rolls, which makes those dice more risky - a cool dynamic to be sure. But, the events themselves are simply a mathematical risk-reward proposition; they don't feel like real happenings in a real city. I don't even read the flavor text and merely opt for the most favorable effect. This feels like a missed opportunity to immerse the player in the world. Some factions may come to live in your city; if you treat them well their influence and happiness will improve. If you get them to the highest influence and happiness, the factions give you some seriously desirable bonuses like getting more dice or nullifying negative weather effects. The progress towards this bonus could be a bit better represented in the UI, but I was able to get these bonuses without too much trouble. The game is very fun and more-ish, I have spent some long hours not wanting to walk away from my next turn. If you want a nice, involved, but ultimately relaxed game to sink some hours into, this is one to check out!

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)

Amberspire is a really compelling city-builder. The gameplay is challenging, but more in a managing your own patience way than difficulty. However, there really is a learning curve. I really could've used a real tutorial instead of just the in-game manual, because at first the gameplay controls for picking up dice with mouse and keyboard were not very clear to me. It is also very unlikely to finish the first attempt at a city. I spent the first few hours of my first city building myself into a corner and had to start a new city in frustration. The second attempt with a much more compact city design was much more successful and I finished the game. The factions are a neat little modofier for different attempts, but I feel they are very unbalanced. My second city had much better factions available and the attempt was much easier because of it. The graphics and music are very atmospheric and fit the chill vibe of the game. It definitely gives the "one more turn" feeling, so don't be surprised when you look at your clock and several hours have passed.

A thinky, beautiful and surprisingly relaxing city builder.

Great art, unique setting, a fun twist on a city building with the dice mechanics.

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!

A very cool and enticing city builder that reveals itself slowly as your best guesses for growth start showing it's strain and an encroaching dread of downfall gets closer and closer with every storm. I love the vibe and the loop is very easy to pick up and understand that you are definitely screwing it up but could eventually maybe get better. Having a lot of fun with 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.