PC (Microsoft Windows)Nintendo Switch2024

Amber Isle

Welcome to Amber Isle - a quaint, friendly village of prehistoric residents who are in need of a new shopkeep... That’s you! Craft and sell items, upgrade your shop, befriend your Paleofolk neighbours and customise the island to bring the village back to life and welcome even more prehistoric pals!

Storyline

Amber Isle is a shop management/social sim set in a quaint, friendly world of prehistoric animal villagers called Paleofolk! Tasked with opening the only shop in a small, sleepy village, you find yourself crafting and selling items to solve unique problems of the unusual clientele. A table big enough for a brontosaurus, a water-proof picnic set for a plesiosaur, or a special toothbrush for a sabre-toothed cat! By exploring and upgrading the isle, discovering new recipes and befriending customers, eventually some Paleofolk will want to move in and become neighbours. Make the shop of your dreams, befriend a cast of dinosaur characters and bring the village back to life!

Trailers

Screenshots

Very Positive

34 Steam reviews

Review History

Reviews

34 total

≥h

Steam User 3708STEAMRecommended

se me hace muy divertido para pasar un buen rato, con cada actualización van añadiendo mas personalización y eso me gusta, los modelos de los personajes son muy lindos, el juego tiene mucho potencial!.

Mar 17, 2026·5h·Verified

Steam User 7599STEAMRecommended

throw yo money at the developers, dis game good

Mar 17, 2026·36h·Verified

Steam User 4110STEAMRecommended

supper cute game

Mar 16, 2026·8h·Verified

Steam User 3627STEAMRecommended

It's got a good heart and soul, and that is doing all the heavy lifting.

This sucker, however, needs massive amounts of balancing and debugging. I can craft an item with one wood, which will sell for more than an item made out of 20 wood and 5 stone. Just...what? A lot of menu and placement stuff is unintuitive and can sometimes become unresponsive. However, as long as this game continues to polish itself, I will continue to support it.

Mar 15, 2026·4h·Verified

Steam User 1124STEAMRecommended

I love the look of this game, everything looks so cozy cute and adorable. The character customization was great to play with. I just can't play it :(, PC to weak, vary sad. Still not gonna refund it.

Mar 14, 2026·2h·Verified

Steam User 8954STEAMRecommended

It's been about 5 hours and I am finally free from the tutorial rails. I hope.

Mar 14, 2026·7h·Verified

Steam User 7112STEAMRecommended

如果是原价110圆这游戏就是屎中屎，史低37.4圆还是挺不错的毕竟可以捏小恐龙

优化糟糕，操作有点小别扭，BUG有点多
前十个小时是比较新鲜的，之后就是刷刷刷做任务了

Mar 12, 2026·12h·Verified

Steam User 5115STEAMRecommended

Vibrant, interesting locales? Check.
Cute characters with scales, feathers, and even fur? Check.
Great soundtrack? Check.
Engaging gameplay loop? Ehh... certainly not for everybody, as it can be a tad on the grindy side, but it's perfectly fine by me, apparently. lol

The UI is a bit lacking, though, particularly in its abundant lack of tooltips; you tell me nothing about the item I'm hovering over, and I have zero clue what any of these "ambience" items do besides the fan (because the mayor literally tells you during a small tutorial quest).
I also wasn't entirely sure how the system for decorating regions actually worked until I paid a bit more attention to what was happening with the numbers (it's not a limit on how many items you can place, it's just a cap on how many points you can get from them; placing more of the exact same item will net you fewer and fewer points until it just stops giving you points for that item, so you have to mix it up some) but that's mostly because I didn't really even need to engage with it to get each region far enough along to progress the story.
Lastly, it starts to get kinda laggy as the island gets more populated, which appears to be particularly troublesome when folks start using the racetrack around Chip's house; during a personal quest for Chip, I had a MASSIVE drop in FPS, and only once I got back to finish the quest did I realize that everyone at the track had stopped moving, I suspect something interrupted their pathfinding and they were repeatedly trying to figure out where to go. (And yes, FPS came back up once the quest completed and everyone started running again)

Overall, though, I'd say the good outweighs the bad, and I'm very happy I finally got around to playing this~

Mar 9, 2026·74h·1·Verified

Steam User 7960STEAMRecommended

"Finished" the game in the sense that I finished all major stories and areas. A pros and cons list incoming.

Pros:
- Good bones to the game. It's a decently fun gameplay loop of crafting and selling items along with making friends with townsfolk and customizing areas that you unlock.
- Adorable aesthetic. It's just cute. I got to be a cute deer-like creature with huge horns, lil fangs, and a sweater. Need I say more? You can customize your dinosaur/creature to your heart's content.
- Surprisingly good characterization/writing. With how cutesy it was, I wasn't expecting for each character to, upon initial meeting, be an example of a cliche (ex: mob boss type, a book nerd, a rocker, etc) and then proceed to adorably yet believably recharacterize them as you get to know them. That was an extremely pleasant surprise of depth.

Cons:
- Quickly repetitive gameplay loop. While it's a decently fun gameplay loop, it unfortunately becomes a little bit tedious pretty quickly. Run around, grab everything you can carry in your always slightly too small backpack, go back to craft things, sell them, go to bed, and repeat. Maybe talk to some people in between somewhere to gain friendship and further their personal quests. Having the ability to have npcs follow you to gain favor is a nice addition, but it too becomes repetitive since you don't really interact with them in any meaningful way when doing this.
- No motivating factor to keep playing. This one is hard for me to describe, but besides the main quest there doesn't really feel like a big motivator to keep doing things. I'm unfortunately not heavily involved or invested in the npcs, even if they are cute and endearing. There's also a cap for each NPC relationship and development that feels just a little too easy to hit too early on. The gameplay loop isn't quite fun enough to keep me wanting to play it on it's own past the story, so it just feels like it's missing a little something. That could just be a personal opinion though.

Honestly, it's a really nice take on the shopkeeper gameplay that's also absolutely adorable yet surprisingly not too 'childish' feeling in it's cuteness. It's a solid game for sure and complaints of mine are minor. There's room to improve, sure, but it is in no way a bad game or not worth the time.

Mar 8, 2026·56h·4·Verified

Steam User 3186STEAMRecommended

So far this game is absolutely adorable and I cant wait to play more,
funny gameplay, cute characters, and it feels like animal crossing for those without a switch

10/10 <3

Mar 8, 2026·6h·Verified

Steam User 9967STEAMRecommended

星露谷+動物森友會
開場就向你要一大筆錢來裝修
每天起床就要忙一堆事情
和星露谷一樣肝

電腦版的動物森友會
不管有沒有折扣一定要入手

Mar 8, 2026·12h·Verified

Steam User 4659STEAMRecommended

Metade do tempo do joguei usei para personalizar meu personagem, diria, um modo unico de tortura

Mar 7, 2026·5h·Verified

Steam User 6575STEAMRecommended

LOVE IT! Basically dinosaur version of animal crossing its sooo cuteee

Mar 7, 2026·4h·Verified

Steam User 6459STEAMRecommended

dinosaurs, shopkeeping, and crafting, what more could you ask for?

Mar 4, 2026·25h·Verified

Steam User 8671STEAMRecommended

bit of Stardew Valley, bit of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 100% DINOSAURS (and other prehistoric critters).

main complaints is the dashing animation looks Off to me (shouldn't they move their arms more when dashing, not less?) and i wish emeralds and rubies weren't so abysmally rare (i'm sorry gwen but i just can't make you those bitty bongos), but other than that this game is super fun, i like it a lot.

Mar 4, 2026·142h·3·Verified

Steam User 2001STEAMRecommended

Amber Isle ha sido un juego muy particular en cuanto estética y ritmo de juego. Con una simple historia y un final satisfactorio. Aunque sea otro juego de tipo Animal Crossing, el mero hecho de que puedas ser TÚ un dino como los demás, lo hace excepcional.
Debido a que es un juego "reciente", le falta pulir muchas mecánicas, dar mejores recompensas y mejorar las misiones secundarias con los habitantes de la isla.

Recomendaría agarrarlo en oferta, platinarlo no es difícil.

Mar 4, 2026·41h·Verified

Steam User 8710STEAMRecommended

This game has it's issues. The controls are wonky, it lags, it is imperfect. But its cute, the characters are adorable, and its fun!

Mar 4, 2026·21h·1·Verified

Steam User 3069STEAMRecommended

muy bonitos los dinosaurios
intente replicar mi fursona dentro, y si pude xD amo esta cosa y la isla y todo aaaaaa

Mar 4, 2026·2h·Verified

Steam User 6312STEAMNot recommended

It just kinda meh, a decent timewaster if anything but everything it just so flat and hollow

Mar 3, 2026·3h·Verified

Steam User 9272STEAMRecommended

very cosy and fun

Mar 2, 2026·26h·Verified

Steam User 8755STEAMNot recommended

Game was not finished. Multiple bugs prevented me from even getting out of the tutorial and being warped back outside of the shop and locked out of it. Interactions with other buildings would lock up, and sometimes NPCs would just vanish when going to talk to them.

It's sad, because I saw a lot of potential here, but this game just is NOT finished.

Mar 1, 2026·3h·5·Verified

Steam User 4618STEAMRecommended

Cute dinos to customize and the animations are adorable!

Mar 1, 2026·4h·Verified

Steam User 6872STEAMRecommended

I definitely recommend this game, its super adorable and kind of chill <3

Mar 1, 2026·4h·Verified

Steam User 8489STEAMRecommended

Really cute game :) Is like Animal Crossing but with dinos!

Feb 28, 2026·4h·Verified

Steam User 0451STEAMRecommended

I adored the first ~20 hours of gameplay. This is sort of like Animal Crossing meets dinosaurs, but you also run a shop to rejuvenate the island. I loved most of the mechanics, but I have some complaints:

- GIFT SYSTEM. I don't understand it. Sometimes you give someone a gift and their friendship goes up, sometimes they just tell you that they love it but no visible friendship increase, and one of them keeps telling me their opinion of me has changed forever. I have no idea which of these is bad, good, better, best.

- FRIENDSHIP SYSTEM: I love that as you befriend the Paleofolk, they interact with each other. That's not something I see often in games and I think it's absolutely precious. However, after level 3 friendship it's incredibly grindy; 30 hours in even the starter NPCs are only at level 4 for me. Maybe it's because I don't understand the gifting system that it's so hard.

- DIFFICULT UI: There are a few issues that I have with the UI and I see that this is common in other reviews, so I'll try to mention things I haven't seen in other reviews. 1) When stocking your shop, after stocking a small (and possibly large) item, it automatically goes back to the medium item selection. Please let it stay where I left off. 2) When crafting, if you go from say All to Refined and craft a few planks then go back to All, it restarts you at the first page every time. Please, if I was on page 7 let me stay there, I was trying to craft something specific and now I have no recollection of what it was or where to find it.

- SHOPKEEPING: 1) Whenever a Paleofolk gets inspired and says they'll invite their friends, my store just stays open forever with no foot traffic. The only way I know to get out of this is to restart the game, because there's no way to manually close your shop.

- CRAFTING: I think the level 10 maximum is too high considering the sheer amount of items available to craft and the limited daily resources. I'm a completionist, I wanted to max everything but I simply can't. I think 5 or 6 would make more sense for this context.

- GENERAL: Just a couple things I've noticed. 1) The shop is very dim even when you have the brightest lighting available, and I don't notice as many decorative beach/seaside items as the other themes, and there is no beach/seaside cashier counter. I feel like the beach got a little left out in terms of shop decoration, maybe, compared to the other biomes. 2) Also, why is it perpetually spring? If there are seasons, why are they so long when you can do so much in so little time? Why are there snowstorms and heatwaves two days apart in the same season? 3) I personally dislike being used as a pawn shop. I already sell at a discount and I can't buy anyone's stuff in a way that won't lose me money, and then they get mad at me for declining them.

I wanted to finish this game, but I'm ~30 hours in and on day like 50something. I have every Paleofolk moved in, most of the regions are 100% or near it, I'm about 200k on the way to paying off my final shop loan, and I still only have level 4 friendship max with anyone. At this point it unfortunately feels very grindy and I've lost interest.

I think this has the potential to be an amazing game, but currently it's just good, if the bugs don't break you. I thought this was worth it on sale for $10 but I think I would've been disappointed if I had paid full price because the game doesn't quite feel possible to finish, it just scales up weirdly at the end.

Feb 27, 2026·36h·Verified

Steam User 4937STEAMNot recommended

I wish Steam had a Medium/Meh category since the game isn´t bad but also isn´t a game I would recommend to my friends. I would only recommend this to people who love dinosaurs since the art style is super cute and the game is at very first really fun but the gaming loop over time just gets boring and annoying to a point. I had the goal of 100% the game later decided to just finish the game, which I haven´t yet and don´t think I ever will since I dont wanna grind to get to the credits.

So if you like Dinosaurs, shopping tycoons or are ok with grinding a lot of money in a resource gathering loop then this game is for you but not a game for everyone (also beware that this is a Team17 game so there will be glitched or bugs you will encounter. One of the most common ones is a Characters personal missions not appearing)

Feb 27, 2026·42h·15·Verified

Steam User 5034STEAMRecommended

This game has me in a choke hold! Every character is so cute! I wanna give them all a hug. IDK which character I like the most <3

Feb 24, 2026·40h·Verified

Steam User 3494STEAMRecommended

Beautiful game with chill music and lovable characters.

In case your screen is black when you boot it up try restarting your PC it did the trick.

otherwise not really experiencing performance issues and the gameplay is solid

Feb 24, 2026·21h·Verified

Steam User 7003STEAMRecommended

This game is so cute and fun! All of the characters are so interesting and adorable, and I'm enjoying the story so far. I've had a few problems but nothing game-breaking, just mildly annoying and fixable with patience. I love the inclusion of nonbinary players/characters, and it's so refreshing to find a cozy game like this without romance as a main mechanic. Can't wait to see the upcoming update!

Feb 24, 2026·58h·Verified

Steam User 8602STEAMRecommended

The gameplay and concepts are fun so far and fit the genre well. The only true negative is that the controls are Super clunky and some menus don't let you see what your choosing with either keyboard or mouse. Hopefully some updates and bugfixes will make it a much more enjoyable experience. It has still captured my attention and is fun to play overall.

Feb 24, 2026·3h·Verified

Steam User 0776STEAMRecommended

I love the design and the characters so far! I haven't gone too far into the game due to wanting to play while I stream the game for others who are interested in playing. Overall this game is a really cute cozy game. I love running a little shop with items I choose to sell and the regular visitors are absolutely adorable. Definitely a great game for dinosaur lovers.

Feb 21, 2026·5h·Verified

Steam User 9479STEAMNot recommended

TLDR: This game is really charming, but still super buggy, and it will ravage lesser computers and laptops

This feels like an early access game with a lot of heart. I love the character designs, the environment is cute, and the way this game rolls out crafting recipes got me hooked on finding my own store style immediately. This is why I have been so miffed about how many bugs and issues I've run into. I've only gotten as far as right you unlock the forest, but already I've:

- Had several of the player tail options get stuck in the ground or bounce around with broken physics, happens often, and tanks framerate

- Had customers make requests for items made of clay and cotton during the tutorial, resources that you can't get until much later in the game, literally impossible for me to complete

- Had the game delete items from my inventory when I place items from storage with a full inventory, made worse by the fact that you can't access your inventory outside of one specific corner of the store while in the store

- Had many crashes, like, "can't get to task manager" level crashes.

I know I don't have the best computer, but this game didn't scream "powerful gaming PC needed" to me, and I've been playing on lowest graphical settings. How is it still barely getting by? Those of you looking for a cute cozy game for your 4 year old laptop, DON'T. I'd personally not recommend until they fix a couple more of these. I would love to come back when that happens (that, and when I have an actual gaming set up. You know, the real gaming setup for hardcore games like Amber Isle)

Feb 19, 2026·6h·4·Verified

Steam User 9270STEAMRecommended

A very cute game! All the paleofolk are adorable and full of personality, the decor and art direction are charming, and even though it starts getting a bit grindy at some point, it's not to the point of becoming frustrating, and the shop mechanics are still quite satisfying.

Feb 17, 2026·20h·Verified

Steam User 0146STEAMNot recommended

- Visuals 9/10
Honestly the art is great and the character design is very good. Which is the shame considering everything else.

- UI 7/10
Pretty good apart from a few weird quirks. I'm still not sure why characters' hatchdays are shown as day and month when the game measures time in days and seasons. Also, the game would benefit a LOT from tooltips. Tell me what the "Generous" trait means.
Oh and the game losing focus freezes the already lengthy loading screens. Why?

- Gameplay 5/10
The world feels very gamey with the resources being collected from very obvious resource nodes and the different biomes being locked behind literal doors. Also resources follow a very clear cut tier progression - Basic Wood, Dark Wood, Red Wood, etc were clearly renamed from Wood 1, Wood 2, Wood 3, etc.
As a side note, a lot of obstacle hitboxes as extremely oversized and the player character sometimes can't squeeze in passages twice their width. Annoyingly frequent camera shenanigans (thinking of that ramp west of Meadow entrance in particular) should probably be fixed as well.

- Sound design 6/10
Alright but not particularly memorable.

- Writing 4/10
The worldbuilding is interesting with concepts such as the Paleoventure and the Saurnames. But beyond that little lore (and a lot of dino puns) the characters are very flat. Beyond the first three, they all feel like props with stats that repeat the same lines again and again and buy stuff at your shop.
It doesn't help that the player character has agency over basically everything on the island, which leaves very little for the other characters to actually feel like people. This is a real shame considering their *visual* design is pretty great.

Overall, Amber Isle could be a great game. It already has great art and solid foundations, but it is really hurt by its weakpoints. The dev team should hire a writer.