Cozy life sim lovers, a new game just dropped, and this one has dinosaurs.
Amber Isle is a shopkeeping sim, where you run your own shop for dinosaurs on a prehistoric island.
In this article, we’ll be giving a full review of the game and ranking it from decaf to fully caffeinated.
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Story
Amber Isle sees you play as a dinosaur heading off on an adventure to work out what your calling is. Your adventure seemingly is cut short, because you may or may not have fallen out of your hot air balloon, crash landing in Amber Isle.
The Amber Isle residents are not so happy about you making a dino shaped hole in the roof of the town shop, and before you know it, you’re tasked with running the town’s shop.
The story of the game is quest based, with both a main quest and side quests to complete. The main quest follows your journey to restore Amber Isle to it’s former glory, attracting new residents and visitors to the island to help bring life back to Amber Isle.
Along the way you’ll build friendships with other dinosaurs residing on the island, and complete a variety of different quests, each with their own rewards.
Now don’t mistake this game for one that is story heavy, as most of the quests are task based, so the story really is woven into the gameplay.
Amber Isle has a pretty fun story, mostly told through dialogue sections with other characters. The dialogue is written really well, adding so much personality to the game, and there’s definitely some underlying humour in there too, which really brings the story to life.
It definitely is one that heavily drives the gameplay, whilst still keeping a good balance between the two. It’s not anything overly heavy or complex, but it provides a decent direction, so for story, I’m rating Amber Isle as Buzzed.
GAMEPLAY
Amber Isle features an interesting mix of shopkeeping and life sim elements, both working side by side to create the main gameplay.
On the shopkeeping side, you’ll need to collect resources from around the island and bring them back to your shop to craft sellable items. You’ll earn inspiration points for completing different goals or tasks, which allow you to unlock more items, and there’s a ton of different ones you can craft and sell.
You’ll craft different items to stock your shop with, and you’ll need to do this manually, editing your shop floor and individually placing each item. You can customize your shop in the same screen, changing the floors and walls, adding more counters to place items on, and placing decor items too.
Once you’ve crafted and placed your items, you’ll need to set your prices, ensuring you’re not charging too much or too little for each. Now you’re ready to open your shop and serve your customers.
When your shop is open, customers will peruse your goods, make purchases, and leaving a trail of dirty footprints you need to clean too. Some customers will need extra assistance, or want to haggle a bit on the price, so you’ll need to serve them at the counter before their patience runs out.
The items are sorted into different categories like carpenter, artisan, chef, gardener and more, and can also be defined by their size, and what materials they are made of. Now these are all important to note, because as the town’s shopkeeper, you’ll often get asked for recommendations on what someone should purchase, and you’ll need to match what type of item the customer wants with an item of that type.
Customers can also place custom orders, which will have certain items you need to craft by a certain date, and a price for those items. If you accept the order, you’ll need to have the items ready for the customer on the due date, ensuring you craft the right ones to keep them happy.
Make your customers happy, and you’ll be rewarded with money, and an increase in your relationship with them too. Happy customers will leave a nice tip, and you can even gain inspiration points from happy customers too. Running your shop well will allow you to earn shop points, and level up your shop, unlocking new decor items, and other goodies too.
The life sim side sees you build relationships with other Amber Isle residents, usually while you’re out collecting resources. You’ll have different quests to complete that can be related to the shopkeeping side, but a lot of them require you to do things outside your shop too.
Amber Isle is in need of some TLC, so you’ll be able to sink some resource and money into repairing things around the island, and each area has it’s own score for how nice it is, which you can increase by placing decorations, removing debris, and repairing things in that specific area.
To begin with, you only have the meadows to explore, but as you progress in the main quest, you’ll unlock more areas, each with their own resources. Unlocking more areas will allow you to welcome more residents to Amber Isle, but of course, you’ll need to ensure they’ve each got somewhere to live, and fulfill any needs they have too.
As you build relationships, you’ll unlock other things, and certain quests will allow you to unlock better tools, different crafting options, and earn you inspiration points. You can also earn inspiration points by completing different goals, like collecting a certain number of resources, or crafting a certain number of items.
Believe it or not, that was a brief overview of the game, and there’s still more I haven’t mentioned. Amber Isle has a lot to love, the shopkeeping side is fun, and adds a great fast paced management side to the game, and the life sim side sees you explore the island and build relationships which adds to the story of the game.
I really enjoyed exploring the different areas, and unlocking more items to craft. Being able to customise your shop is great, and there’s a lot of variety in the game, making it really hard to get bored.
This is a game that is full of different things to do, and some really fun gameplay elements, so for gameplay, I’m rating Amber Isle as Fully Caffeinated.
DESIGN
The design of Amber Isle is a vibrant cartoon style, that really brings the dinosaur theme to life. The character customisation is absolutely incredible, giving you so many different options to choose from, and really lets you have a lot of creativity when it comes to designing your dino character.
The shop design is similar, with some really cool different themes to the decoration items, and I loved that they matched with the different areas.
The world design is really great, with each area having a distinct feel, and the character design is incredible, again adding so much detail to the game.
The soundscape is a perfect match to the gameplay and art style, giving us a game that really nails the cozy vibe.
I really loved the design of the game, so for design, I’m rating Amber Isle as Fully Caffeinated.
ORIGINALITY
Amber Isle is one of those games that takes familiar elements, and pairs them with different mechanics to make something that feels pretty unique.
Shopkeeping sims are few and far between, especially good ones, and adding a Jurassic twist, really sets the game apart from others.
The dino theme is not a new one, and there could be comparisons made between Amber Isle and Paleo Pine, simply because they’re both cozy dinosaur games, but Amber Isle has no farming in it, and has dinosaurs as the characters themselves, so there’s definitely a ton of differences that keep both games in their own leagues.
Amber Isle, definitely has similar mechanics to a lot of life sim games, particularly with the quest based progression and the relationship building, but the addition of the shopkeeping side, and the unique story set this game apart, so for originality, I’m rating Amber Isle as Buzzed.
THE FINAL BREW
Amber Isle is a great cozy pick, particularly if you love life sims, or management games. The dino theme is already fun, but made even more entertaining by the funny dialogue, and interesting characters.
This is a game that ticks a lot of boxes, is pretty easy to lose time to, and will resonate with a lot of different gamers.
We’ve ground the beans, we’ve carefully weighed and pressed the grinds, and brewed this game down. Now it’s time for a taste test….Amber Isle is Fully Caffeinated.
Amber Isle is available on Steam now and is coming to Nintendo Switch November 21st, you can find the link in the description below! You can find more info here
Until next time, stay caffeinated!
