Amber Isle is a Simulation Game developed by Ambertail Games and published by Team17. It was released on Steam on October 10, 2024, and Nintendo Switch on November 21.
In a world inhabited by anthropomorphic, supposedly extinct animals called paleofolk, you play as a youngster who falls from a hot air balloon and crash-lands into the only shop on Amber Isle. In order to pay off your debt for the building's repairs, the mayor makes you the shopkeeper, and you must improve the abandoned village in order to convince more residents to move in.
This game contains examples of:
- Anachronism Stew: Animals from all across time live on Amber Isle, ranging from Anomalocaris (520 to 499 million years ago) to thylacines (1.7 million years ago to 1936 A.D.).
- All There in the Manual: The official website's Paleopedia👁 Image
contains quite a bit of information about the various Paleofolk populating Amber Isle that doesn't pop up in-game. - Alternative Calendar: The months are named identically to the common Gregorian calendar, but are all exactly 28 days each.
- Bamboo Technology: The only materials Paleofolk have access to are plants, stone, sediments, and rarely metal. Despite this, they're able to build electronics such as wired phones out of wood which are powered by crystals.
- Company Cross-References: Exclusive to the game's Starter Pack are statues of a Worm and Concrete Donkey which can be placed anywhere around the island, given the game is published by Team17 and all.
- Dying Town: Amber Isle is specifically stated to be as such, and it shows with only two actual inhabitants and many abandoned structures.
- Falling into the Plot: The game begins with the player character falling out of a hot-air balloon and into the shop. The have to work there to pay for the repairs.
- Fantastic Naming Convention: Paleofolk have saurnames, which come after their given names and consist of two words put together. While some choose to inherit their parents' saurnames, most paleofolk choose theirs after going on a paleoventure to find their purpose in life.
- Fictional Currency: Amber is the main currency in this game.
- Flintstone Theming: Many of the item names are puns on palaeontological terms, such as time periods and extinct animal genera. There's a pair of sauropod-shaped salt shakers called Saltasaurus Sweethearts, a plasticine kit called the Pleistocene Clay Set, a chess-like game called Thinkysaurus Rex, and so on.
- Funny Animal: All the paleofolk are bipedal and mostly live like humans.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Most Paleofolk only wear shirts, with some, such as Axel, additionally wearing headgear. The only Paleofolk to wear pants is Maple the Pteranodon.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs:
- When asking the player to get her materials for the "She Sells Sea Shells" quest, Marnie says, "pretty please with an ammonitea cherry on top."
- Penn says, "Now that the Proailuruscat is out of the knapsackbag" when introducing himself to the player.
- Lesser Animals: The game is set in a World of Funny Animals called Paleofolk, who are all based on extinct species. The only non-anthro animals shown are modern-looking insects and fish.
- MegaCorp: Implied. OrbCorp seems to be mostly benign, but it's specifically stated that they have their stakes in lot of things.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: When customising the player character, you can choose a variety of parts from different species. This is lampshaded by Vinny, who doesn't know what you are.
- NPC Boom Village: When the player first arrives at the eponymous Dying Town, there are two inhabitants. Over time, the population can increase to forty-eight as you befriend more of the Paleofolk.
- Patchwork Map: The titular island is a relatively small locale, but has a desert, tundra, swamp, beach, forest, and mountain all within walking distance of each other and organized in a perfect circle around the town square.
- Rite of Passage: The player character arrives on Amber Isle as part of their paleoventure, a rite of passage where young paleofolk travel the world to discover what they want to do with their lives.
- Rite-of-Passage Name Change: Paleofolk are given a first name by their parents, but they choose a saurname once they've figured out the direction of their life. In the post-game, Adi chooses the saurname "Ambertail" because home is where you place your tail — in this case, on Amber Isle — and you, the player, get to choose your saurname as well.
- Shout-Out:
- Many quests' names are references. "Falling... with Style!" is a line from Toy Story 1, "Plight at the Museum" is a play on Night at the Museum, "Dig? Dug" is a play on Dig Dug, "The Sword and the Stone" is a reference to the sword in the stone from Arthurian Legend, "Toil and Trouble" is a line from Macbeth, "Quite Contrary" is a reference to the nursery rhyme "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary", "When I'm Cleaning Coastlines" is a play on the song "When I'm Cleaning Windows", "She Sells Sea Shells" is named after a tongue-twister, "I'll Be There For You" is named after the Friends theme song, and "You Would Not Believe Your Eyes..." is named after the first line of "Fireflies" by Owl City.
- Kipper says he wants free cinema tickets from a mortgage provider called Compare the Marshosaurus, a reference to Compare the Market, a British insurance company with an ad campaign called Compare the Meerkat whose offers include free cinema tickets.
- Some of the craftable artisan items are parodies of movie posters, including Tundravatar, My Neighbour Momoro, and the Jawsome Poster. The Land of Our Time shows a sauropod hatching from an egg, similar to Littlefoot's introduction in The Land Before Time.
- Shown Their Work: The paleofolk show accuracy to modern discoveries such as feathers on coelurosaurs, and Andrewsarchus being closely related to entelodonts. Additionally, the hands of the dinosaurs are accurate to the real animals—for example, ceratopsians and ankylosaurs having three large clawed fingers and two small clawless ones, sauropods with only a single thumb claw—which most media, including books, almost never get right!
- Terrestrial Sea Life: There are several paleofolk based on fully-aquatic animals, such as fish and plesiosaurs, who walk on land with no issue. Downplayed in the case of Asra, an Anomalocaris who came from a deep sea colony.
- Title Drop: Kind of. In the post-game, Adi chooses Ambertail as his saurname, which is the name of the developer.
- World of Funny Animals: Every character in the game is a supposedly extinct animal being anthropomorphized in a local town.
