2 
0 Amber Isle is a cosy management game with crafting and exploration. Developed by Ambertail Games and published by Team17. Available for £24.99, this adorable dino adventure arrived on Steam today! However, Nintendo Switch gamers will have to wait until 31st October to get their hands on this cute prehistoric village sim game.
Let’s make a name for ourselves!
Your (customisable) Paleofolk embark on an adventure, which is short-lived after they fall from the hot-air balloon they’re travelling on. Your dino falls through the roof of an abandoned shop on Amber Isle. The outraged and less than friendly Mayor Clawsworth declares you a hooligan that must pay for damages. Two kinder Paleofolks, Mabel and Adi convince the Mayor to let you run the aforementioned store and help fix up the once great town.
Gameplay
Running Amber Isle’s only store, your Paleofolk has a lot to do. You must collect materials, craft items and stock your shop so you have items to sell. Connecting with the island’s villagers and visitors goes a long way too, and has its own rewards in time. Recipes, friendships, goals, disciplines (this game’s skill tree) and more are available in your Shop Keepers Journal.
Crafting & Materials
Crafting and finding materials is the backbone of running your shop in Amber Isle. While you start off with some basic recipes, finding new materials, making friends and learning disciplines unlocks more crafting recipes.
Gathering the materials needed to craft requires plenty of exploration. This entails using tools to gather materials and remove debris across the Isle, such as a scythe for thorns that block your path, or an axe to shop up logs. You’ll be able to upgrade your tools to break down larger things, which will get you more materials. As you unlock more regions on the Isle, you’ll discover unique materials for each location. For example, Starfall Meadow has Claws, while Woodbury has Feathers.
Disciplines
The Seven Disciplines are like skill trees, each relating to certain categories of items. For example, there is a Chef discipline, which are recipes for items such as knife blocks and bowls. These are important as not only do you need to get more stock for your store, but they help you appeal to specific customers. Inspiration is used to unlock these different recipes, which you earn from running the store, completing the goals in your journal, and more.
Running The Store
Running the store is key to earning Amber, the currency used to buy materials from some Paleofolk and also fix the town. You can stock the store, set prices and decorate the store at the front counter. Customers will comment on the prices. Sometimes a customer will want an item but disagree with the price, which leads to them haggling with you.
Offering cheaper prices, completing custom orders, and recommending the correct items based on their preferences raises friendship with the customers and store rank. Being friends with Paleofolk has perks, such as higher tips and they’re more likely to be happy paying higher prices for items.
Friendship
Friendship is an important part of running your store and restoring Amber Isle. While there are things you can do via your store to raise your friendship with other Paleofolk, there are more personal approaches you can take. You can ask Paleofolk around the island to hang out with you (though only one at a time). As you harvest materials around the island, the Paleofolk will follow you around and your friendship meter rises. However, it doesn’t seem to raise outside of their home region.
Talking to them and giving gifts also raises their friendship. Your journal will keep track of their Hatch Day, friendship level and preferences. This information helps you raise their friendship even further, and with finding out what they would like from your store. Making friends and completing quests for them also helps unlock recipes, tool upgrades, and outfit pieces.
Graphics & Audio
Everything about the graphics and audio of Amber Isle really puts the cozy into cozy game. The music is upbeat and plucky and other times soft and relaxed. The graphics are simplistic, but to me it adds to the relaxed but cheery atmosphere of the game. Colours are vibrant, but not overwhelmingly so. I liked the varying designs for the different regions of Amber Isle, with my favourite being Mt. Morrisong. I love the blue and purple hues across the region and the crystals that protruded out of walls.
Paleofolk designs are unique and varied. I like that, excluding two of the Paleofolk (who are siblings), each one (so far) is different dinosaur types and varies in size. While most of them are great, my two top favourites so far are Kipper and Chester, who are downright adorable. Some smaller details I love are things like kicking up of grass as you run and little white lines that float across the screen to represent the breeze. I love the design of the bone shovel, but my all-time favourite detail is the adorable animation when your dinosaur flails their arms as they sweep.
Longevity
Amber Isle is a laid back game, so the longevity comes down to if you like to take your time. I’ve managed to only unlock three areas in the game (not counting the first meadow). Suffice to say the game has plenty to do and explore.
Final Thoughts
At the time of reviewing, which was pre launch, there were some minor issues with Amber Isle. For example, some of the menus wouldn’t work when I clicked them. I also saw eyes sometimes meshing into characters models. Not the cute look the devs were going for I’m sure. Like I said these are minor issues and they can easily be addressed with a patch on release.
Another quality of life improvement would be info boxes for items when attempting to recommend a product to a customer. The image is okay, but becomes hard when the client wants something small. For example, at one point I tried to give a customer a pencil and it was the wrong choice. As the icon was small and there was no info box this was a repeated mistake and it did become tedious. I also found the filter option didn’t work and using the sorting function could be better. I understand these may actually sound like major issues, but they didn’t break my gameplay experience. They were just minor nuisances.
With all that said, Amber Isle is both fun and adorable to play and, just like the island, it needs a few fixes. The creative choices you can do for the shop and island feel like Animal Crossing (although not so in depth with custom designs). The inhabitants are quirky and entertaining with their personalities.
That’s why I’m giving Amber Isle the Thumb Culture Gold Award. Now excuse me, if you need me I’ll be on Amber Isle completing my island fix up.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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