Amber Isle Reviews

I wanna recommend it, it's just really shallow with not much to actually do sadly :(

A terrific and engaging kind of "animal crossing knockoff" for dinomaniacs everywhere!! 🦖💖

Hecka cute dino animal crossing. Very much for a younger audience, but it's still enjoyable, especially if you catch it on sale.

This game has a lot of charm to it. The characters are all well designed, have unique personalities and gimmicks, as well as cute intertwined stories. The models are well made, despite the occasional visual bug, and the style is bright but not an eyesore. As for game play, it is simple and not punishing, meaning you can take your time and make mistakes to learn how to better your shop. There are some bugs that can interrupt game play significantly though. Sometimes sitting in certain chairs locks your game, sometimes data wont save properly, and sometimes the camera will freak out. I let these slide due to the indie nature of it, but i hope so see these fixed.

When I first saw my friend stream this game it was love at first sight. This is my first time playing a store management game and at first I was worried I wouldn't like the gameplay, but I quickly got a hang of the bartering system. Every character has their charms and I'm excited to meet every one of them. My main critique is the crafting UI. In the top right corner of each item is a number displaying the amount of said item that you have on hand. My issue is that the color of the background and the color of the number are way too close to each other. I have to squint or lean closer to my monitor at times just to see how much of a given item I have. Besides that I am a big fan of this game and I am excited to see what Ambertail Games does in the future :)

Honestly it's utterly adorable. Personally I want my character to look more like a Spinosaurus, but the customisation of the character to begin with is amazing!

Super cute game! I love the characters and their individual quests tell fun stories. I do wish they would patch a few things about this game. Sometimes I am unable to cycle through items in menus, whether using the keyboard or my mouse. There are a couple small bugs like that in this version. I will say though that the Steam version runs much better than the Switch version which has more bugs and crashes often. I also wish they would add more space for the shop. Mine is fully upgraded but I am not able to show off nearly enough of my products. Too many products, not enough space. Overall I'd give this a 6/10. It would be a 9 if they fix some bugs and give us more shop expansions.

Super cute little cozy game. It's like Animal Crossing but with dinosaurs. Highly recommend to anyone who really loves cozy games with a bit more structure.

this game is great n all but yall gotta actualy fix the game coz omg every time i reccomand it i need to add in a ton of side notes about how broken it is

I like this game. I think this game is a great way to chill out if you like repetitive tasks (gathering, crafting, running the store, all in a day loop) or shop management sims (or even just making items, which was the biggest appeal to me). The character customization is robust and fun to play with. The animations on the dinos, including the NPCs, are all cute, and I like the personalities and dialogue and designs they all have. I like the exploration, I like unlocking new regions and decorating them. I've been addicted to this game lately! All of that being said, I do have some gripes with it, mostly around QOL and bug fixes. There are some other things I don't like. And for as much as I am addicted to this Animal Crossing x Generic Shop Tycoon dino crossover, I can't in good conscience recommend others play it because the issues are so glaring that I think most people won't actually enjoy playing it. Bugs I've Encountered: - When a customer asks if you have a specific item in stock, sometimes your "On Display" tab in the menu reflects what's in your storage and only one item out of it (usually a clump of dirt or some other crafting material). You can't access your items when this bug occurs, so you automatically fail the sale unless you happen to have exactly what they want in your actual storage or pockets. - The NPCs will mix up their dialogue sometimes. I've had Adi's night dialogue play at dawn, for example. - The NPCs will glitch themselves into the terrain. Just yesterday I had Adi somehow end up inside a cliff at the swamp, and because he was entirely blocked off I couldn't speak to him. - When the haggle system pops up, sometimes the dinos want to "haggle" to the exact same price you just set. E.g. someone comes to sell you a piece of paper. You offer 13 amber. The NPC says "no, I want more than that. I want 13." - When delivering items to the house of a dino, sometimes the delivery button bugs out and snaps onto the second or third box of materials and won't move away from it no matter if you move around or come back in a bit. QOL Changes I'd Like To See (That Do Not Exist For Some Reason): - In the journal's "Paleofolk" tab, putting a character's pronouns anywhere in their info would be nice - Being able to search both in the journal and at the crafting table for the item you need to craft and/or unlock - A function to mark items at the crafting table that are needed for custom orders - In the shop, when a customer asks for a specific product (Artisan, Carpenter, etc) or a product made from a material (Wood, Stone, etc) it would be nice if these could be highlighted/marked in some way. When you have over 100 recipes in the game, I am not going to be able to memorize what's what. - When decorating, it is severely annoying how large the plots are vs how small the area is. The beach is the most egregious example, but I've had issues with the swamp too. If I generally want to keep an area walkable and open or decorate it, I usually have to choose between that and having a house. There are only a few good areas for housing in my opinion, and I don't like how the houses are so big that you can't nestle them somewhere nice and keep the environment walkable. - To that end, not having debris/materials be auto-cleared (if you have the requisite tool to be able to get that material in the first place) if you want to put a housing plot down. Why do I have to run outside and clear the area? Other games with similar mechanics will clear out the debris for me. I'm okay with losing the materials since the nodes respawn, I just would like to see some more functionality around this aspect of the gameplay, which is arguably a core part of it. - The CAMERA. I detest the fixed camera angle. If that can't be changed, and I understand why it wouldn't be, at least having it zoom out slightly farther or making it so that the tall tree canopies in the swamp don't completely block your camera at certain angles without zooming in so much you can't see the terrain would be nice. - The screen after you make a sale and at the end of the shop phase when you're collecting tips lasts way too long. I don't need to see the numbers gradually stack up; just give me a flat number and/or let me skip through the counting phase so I can move on. - Why do I have to hold a button to open the door to my shop, but other buildings I can just walk into? Why do I have to hold a button to sweep/clean my displays when it could be just a button press? Things I Personally Don't Like: - The NPCs, when you fail to have an item they want in stock, are MEAN! I don't mind a mean character, but if I wanted to be yelled at while making a sale, I'd go work a real-life retail job. This aspect I feel could be toned down. - The "small item" displays don't match the height of the medium & large item displays. This is such a minor gripe but it drives me crazy from an aesthetic standpoint. It would be nice to maybe have shelving displays instead or just a fixed height for all displays. - The haggling system in general feels awkward and bad to use. You generally get scalped by NPCs selling you something for 2-3x the price you try to start at, and when selling items it's hard to get them to actually buy it at a base price. I can overlook a haggling system in general if it makes sense, but this one doesn't. - The control scheme (I use mouse/keyboard) is horrendous. I had to remap a bunch of buttons because it made no sense to me. Even with my keybinds re-mapped, though, it's still a janky and awkward experience for me personally. I see other reviewers generally agreeing with this sentiment. This game feels like it was made with controllers in mind over keyboards and the mouse/keyboard folks were an afterthought. While I do subscribe to the idea that not every game needs to be mouse/keyboard friendly, I do think that it shouldn't feel *bad* to play with one for what is supposed to be a "cozy" title. All in all, I'll reiterate that while I am enjoying this game and will continue to play it, the issues become more and more glaring the longer I play, and until a lot of the bugs and QOL issues are fixed, I still don't think I can recommend this to anyone other than the most patient and carefree gamers out there.