Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Legends of Amberland - oldschool open world blobber

Chris Koźmik

Silver Lemur Games
Developer
Joined
Nov 26, 2012
Messages
414
I need to ponder on those longer...


I'm especially interested in the right menu changes ("quick actions you can set how you like", etc) so if you have more details on those, post. Feel free to approach it from two angles (LoA and sequels) if you wish. Overall, I'm always receptive to UI adjustments ideas :)

Also, about "Keys remapping overwrite", does anyone else find it worth implementing?

Same for "friendly houses MP restoration" as an option, anyone else finds it worth it?
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
I need to ponder on those longer...


I'm especially interested in the right menu changes ("quick actions you can set how you like", etc) so if you have more details on those, post. Feel free to approach it from two angles (LoA and sequels) if you wish. Overall, I'm always receptive to UI adjustments ideas

I'll launch Amberland again tonight and see if anything else comes up to improve the UI.

As for the Amberland and sequels approach, i think pushing the mechanics deeper could improve the game

Character development

Some kind of feats (D&D like), perks (Fallout-like) or skills/combat skills would be nice:
  • A D&D feat that would work well, for example is cleave
  • Some feats/perks giving flat bonuses to healing spells would be nice.
  • Some perks/feats increasing minimum damage for spells or just one spell.
  • Or even a perk decreasing maximum damage for a particular spell but increasing the minimum damage by 3 times that amount. (or 2 times and then another to bring it to 3)
  • Some ways to increase the special skill uses per rest
Familiars for some mage classe(s) (possibly either this or power increase feats)

- Instead of the useless D&D familiar, you could go for familiars increasing their usefulness as the character (or the familiar with a different xp count/gain) level up.
- Familiar are invoked again when you rest in a safe environment (Inns, ...? )
- A shield familiar getting hit instead of his master until the familiar HP drops to 0.
- A familiar throwing some special short duration buffs (for the combat or just 1/2 hours) every once in a while on the party or debuffs on your foes.
- A familiar focusing the mage powers (slight damage increase for spells) and or giving some mana regeneration but being targeted my enemies AoE spells and healed by friendly healing spells next to him.
- A familiar having a chance to steal items in shops (once every owner level) or giving discounts by revealing the shop owners secrets.
- ...

Secrets, eventually deadly traps
  • Maybe the bard and some other classes could have a detect secrets score increased by an attribute and possibly increased further by some feats or natural abilities (racial and from classes)
  • Deadly traps you could detect and avoid (alternate route) or just fall into and die...
  • Eventually some secret NPCs and quests (just enough to motivate a second playthrough if you missed them)
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
The only think i can add regarding the UI is the addition of shortcuts for spells, which probably needs the overwrite remapping i was talking about earlier.

At least 3-6 shortcuts but the more the merrier.
 

Tramboi

Prophet
Patron
Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
1,226
Location
Paris by night
Well, that was nice ! Good MM vibes there, of course it lacks the sheer brilliance (and completeness) of the source material but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. And importantly, it didn't overstay its welcome.
If the (resident) author Chris Koźmik makes a sequel, it could be great !

Quality of life requests :
* F8 from title page to quickload after starting
* Multiscale map, mousewheel to unzoom, drag and drop to pan
* Map annotations
* Searchable map (luxury but why not, type "castle" or "tower" and cycle through matches)
* Hyperlinks from the journal to the map for locations (or at least a tooltip with coordinates if it was visited before)
 

Butter

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
7,523
Version 1.23 released

This version focuses on gamepad and keyboard support improvements. Also, several spelling/localization fixes. In addition, one small adjustment, now flags for castles and forts on the minimap are identical to those shown on the 3D view.


- [gfx] Minimap shows proper flags colors for all castles and forts.

- [interface] Added gamepad section to Options/Controls (now there are separate Keyboard and Gamepad controls screens).
- [interface] Option/Controls an option to swap strafe and left/right movement gamepad mappings.
- [interface] Scroller can now also be operated via all up/down movement keys (not just up/down arrows but all remapped movement keys whatever your current mapping might be).
- [interface] Scrolling on Quests screen available via gamepad.
- [interface] Hint Cursor: Tooltips on Quest screen now available by holding CTRL (keyboard) or RT (gamepad).
- [interface] Hint Cursor: Tooltips on Achievements screen now available by holding CTRL (keyboard) or RT (gamepad).
- [interface] Gamepad hints for Stats/Inventory/Quests/Achievements buttons (displayed when holding RT button).
- [interface] Notification popup if you play with a gamepad connected (only if gamepad is enabled via experimental features).
- [interface] Map now properly shows names of locations when using gamepad.

- [fix] Localization not displayed for Teleport events.
- [fix] Localization missing in one part of the Magic efficiency tooltip.
- [fix] Localization DE (two tiny fixes).
- [fix] Fixed spelling of Necklace of Paralysis and Brothers of the Knife plaque missing one word.

Note: Nintendo Switch version will be updated to v1.23 within a few hours.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,232
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.silverlemurgames.com/2021/08/04/legends-of-amberland-version-1-24/

Legends of Amberland version 1.24

Version 1.24 released

Technical update (fixes of some rare OS related bugs and better support for legacy systems). In addition small interface bug fixes.

– [interface] Esc key now closes any open confirmation/notification box.

– [fix] Engine upgraded (fixes to some rare OS related bugs).
– [fix] Esc key incorrectly closing overwrite file box.

LoA_screenshot_v1.24.0.png


Some of asked about Switch version update to v1.24, there is no need since Switch does not have ESC key and no Windows OS to fix, so none of this apply. Therefore v1.23 on Nintendo Switch is identical feature wise to the v1.24 on Windows/Linux.
 

Dungeon Lord

Scholar
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
240
I know that M&M5 used this same brown background color.
But the red color letters are not a good idea on that (character sheet attributes). It is barely readable.
 

Chris Koźmik

Silver Lemur Games
Developer
Joined
Nov 26, 2012
Messages
414
I know that M&M5 used this same brown background color.
But the red color letters are not a good idea on that (character sheet attributes). It is barely readable.
Hmmm, those seem to have a good contrast, should be readable... What color do you propose to replace it with (lighter red?)
Also, on what screen size (not resolution) do you play?

To me those look fine, but it does not mean anything...
 

unseeingeye

Cleric/Mage
Patron
Joined
Jul 13, 2021
Messages
572
Strap Yourselves In
I'm just learning of this game now, and definitely purchasing a copy this weekend. I've been playing World of Xeen lately and would absolutely love a new game inspired by it, it looks great!
 

Chris Koźmik

Silver Lemur Games
Developer
Joined
Nov 26, 2012
Messages
414
Was it inspired by Xeen or another game? I'm inclined to say many.
It was inspired by Dungeon Master, Eye of The Beholder 2, Might & Magic 3-5, Crystals of Arborea (a not so well known prequel to Ishar series), GoldBox series (Champions of Krynn, Dark Queen of Krynn, etc).
 

unseeingeye

Cleric/Mage
Patron
Joined
Jul 13, 2021
Messages
572
Strap Yourselves In
Was it inspired by Xeen or another game? I'm inclined to say many.
It was inspired by Dungeon Master, Eye of The Beholder 2, Might & Magic 3-5, Crystals of Arborea (a not so well known prequel to Ishar series), GoldBox series (Champions of Krynn, Dark Queen of Krynn, etc).
So in other words, a list of basically my favorite games of all time!

I just bought my copy through GOG, I'm super excited to check it out! I don't know if I'll be getting to it tonight or tomorrow but I'll be certain to share my experience with it.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,232
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.silverlemurgames.com/2022/01/27/legends-of-amberland-version-1-25/

Legends of Amberland version 1.25

Version 1.25 released

This version focuses on fixing the remaining, usually low priority or very rare bugs, numerous small interface improvements and improved gamepad support. Gamepad support is still marked as experimental, so to use gamepad you need to enable experimental features in Options first. As a side effect of improving gamepad support, the game is also now almost fully playable (with few exceptions) via keyboard alone if one so desires. As of this version you can do everything via gamepad/keyboard except entering names for characters and savefiles (which will be added in future versions).

– [misc] Upgraded to the newest version of SDL2 (for better gamepad support and detection).
– [misc] Screenshots are now saved as .PNG (instead of .BMP) in the root folder (instead of data/).

– [interface] Options support keyboard/gamepad.
– [interface] Options video resolution selector simplified. Also rearranged placements of some options.
– [interface] Gamepad buttons L/R can be used for selecting options category.
– [interface] Display gamepad button hints on Load/Save screens (only if gamepad is plugged in).
– [interface] DELETE key and gamepad button “X” can be used to delete save files (on Load/Save screens).
– [interface] Load/Save screen shows 8 files now instead of 9, extra space will be used for additional information about the savefiles.
– [interface] Added location and highest party level information to Load/Save (will be displayed for new savefiles only).
– [interface] Display gamepad button hints on Map screen (only if gamepad is plugged in).
– [interface] Full map better adjusting size to the screen resolution.
– [interface] Adjusted positions of gamepad hints on screens.
– [interface] Some font colors changed to black (for consistency with NPC dialogue): Rest, Info.
– [interface] Inventory has a separate button on the right menu.
– [interface] Rearranged the right menu to make it more logical.
– [interface] Small inventory beautification, also added a colored tag for Quest and Special items.
– [interface] Adjust item bar size and text positions (making it look better especially at lower resolutions).
– [interface] Character statistics screen displays icons of statuses next to the statuses names.
– [interface] Small interface beautification (scrollers positions).

– [fix] Flee time penalty was 10 days instead of intended 10 hours (a bit extreme).
– [fix] Monsters entering illegal unlocked gate tile which sometimes allowed switching places with the party.
– [fix] Very rare “Item not found” bug in some high level chests.
– [fix] Quit from game was executed when ESC key was pressed on new game screen while fast quit option was enabled.
– [fix] Restoration spell reporting failure like heal (now it properly reports failure due to conscious/petrified target).
– [fix] Spelling mistakes.
– [fix] Locale improvements and fixes: ES,PL,FR,BR,DE.

LoA_screenshot_v1.25.0.png
 

Chris Koźmik

Silver Lemur Games
Developer
Joined
Nov 26, 2012
Messages
414
..is this game too easy or does it still present a decent challenge?

At minimum, play on the Hard difficulty setting. Insane might be a greater challenge, but seemed a bit overkill.
Exactly.

The official recommendation is that most player play at Normal and Codexians at Hard difficulty. It's about right then.
Insane is not recommended (especially at the first run).
 
Last edited:

index.php

Arcane
Joined
Jul 5, 2013
Messages
875
https://www.silverlemurgames.com/2022/06/21/legends-of-amberland-version-1-26/

Legends of Amberland version 1.26​


Version 1.26 released

In this version the interface was partially redesigned. Nothing groundbreaking, it’s still the same interface, but there were several smaller changes introduced to make it more spacey and more intuitive. Close screen buttons were made smaller and moved to another spot to free extra space, which allowed a bigger inventory box for example and thicker scroller bars. Some buttons were rearranged, merged, moved to different sections, etc. Again, a lot of things changed but it still has the same vibe so you won’t get confused. Equipping items was redesigned as well, now when you click on an unequipped item it will replace an equipped one (it was quite tricky with accessories but I managed to find an algorithm for it that works well), which is both intuitive and was requested by players for a long time (in case it’s needed I could add an option to disable it and make it work the old way, but I suspect there will be no such need). Also some other small changes, like the compass made more visible, extra icons on map interface, etc.

– [feature] Equipment gets swapped when attempting to equip and you already have an equipped item in that slot. It will also make last accessory unequipped when all accessory slots are filled and you attempt to equip the type of accessory you don’t have equipped yet.
– [feature] Mute on focus lost option (advanced audio setting). Note: if you installed the game prior to v1.26 you will have it off by default, it’s recommended to turn it on, you can do so via Options/Audio.

– [misc] Optimization.

– [interface] Compass redrawn to make the directions more visible.
– [interface] Wider scroller size.
– [interface] Added icons to map buttons (summon griffin, center on party).
– [interface] Close screen buttons made smaller and unified across all screens (when gamepad is plugged in the icon is replaced with gamepad hint icon).
– [interface] Close screen button moved to the top left corner also added “B” to the bottom hints display if gamepad is plugged in.
– [interface] Quests and Titles moved to info section.
– [interface] Removed right mini menu from Statistics and Inventory screens (redundant now since Inventory can be accessed directly from the main right menu).
– [interface] Inventory boxes made wider (possible now since right mini menu was removed and extra space became available).
– [interface] Used shop and deposit item boxes made wider.
– [interface] Other small interface improvements.

– [fix] Overwrite file notice was giving a wrong filename (the correct file was overwritten, just noticed box display was incorrect).

LoA_screenshot_v1.26.png
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,232
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.silverlemurgames.com/2022/12/07/legends-of-amberland-version-1-27/

Legends of Amberland version 1.27​

Version 1.27 released

This version focuses on gamepad support and SteamDeck support. Now the game can be fully played using gamepad without the need for mouse or keyboard, this includes built in virtual keyboard for entering text into input fields (which does not rely on Steam API and can be used standalone). In addition load/save interface was fully redesigned and made more clear and convenient to use.

Note that the exact gamepad model support might vary, so it’s not guaranteed your gamepad will work and/or it might require configuring first.

– [misc] SteamDeck start with Gamepad enabled by default (PC plugged gamepads still require experimental features enabled).
– [misc] Exposed gamepad configuration in “data/gamecontrollerdb.txt”, so you might attempt to reconfigure your gamepad if it’s not mapped correctly.
– [misc] Technical update (the newest version of third party libraries).

– [interface] Title screen updated to make the title font consistent with the fonts used in the new banners.
– [interface] Main menu bottom buttons and text auto resized (useful for very high resolutions).
– [interface] The input field to enter hero name can be selected via keyboard (so able to create party without using the mouse).
– [interface] Launches the virtual keyboard when attempting to enter hero name if a gamepad is plugged in.
– [interface] Redesigned Load/Save screen. Now fully keyboard and gamepad friendly (and also slightly more intuitive).
– [interface] The text input field on New Save launches the virtual keyboard if a gamepad is plugged in.
– [interface] Load/Save screen has now disabled scrolling when a confirmation box is active.
– [interface] Various small improvements of the Load/Save screen.
– [interface] Now “LT” is listed as fists on the buttons combo (to avoid confusion, since it needs to be held first).
– [interface] Center gamepad hints position on buttons (prettier in some rarer screen resolutions).
– [interface] Gamepad hints for movement buttons (when held the “RT” help button).
– [interface] More gamepad hints in various places (on all Back buttons, notice on new game that “RT” shows help, etc).

– [fix] Incorrect position of input box on load/save screen.
– [fix] Incorrect mouse clicking zone on levers interaction via mouse when facing some directions (not that anyone uses mouse for it, but still).

LoA_screenshot_v1.27.png
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,232
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
GameBanshee review: https://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews...and-the-forgotten-crown-review/all-pages.html

Introduction

Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown is a party-based dungeon-crawling RPG in the vein of Might and Magic III-V. Developed by Silver Lemur Games, it was originally released back in 2019.

But now, with the game's sequel - The Song of Trees - slated for a 2023 release, we figured it was time for us to check it out and see what it had to offer and whether we should be looking forward to that sequel.

An Intro to Amberland

Before we begin, you might want to know that Silver Lemur Games is essentially a one-man studio - Legends of Amberland was designed and programmed by a single developer who then outsourced the game's audio and visuals.

Which makes the whole project quite darn impressive considering how closely it manages to follow in the footsteps of its venerable predecessors. And sure, certain aspects of Legends of Amberland may fall short when compared to those classic Might and Magic titles, but to counterbalance this, the game does offer some interesting fresh ideas and improvements to the formula.

On the most basic level, Legends of Amberland is a first-person dungeon crawler of the blobber variety - you control a party of seven adventurers on a grand quest in a vibrantly pixelated fantasy land.

The general premise of the game is that your kingdom is being besieged by ogres, but the king just doesn't seem to have enough knights to fend off this invasion. And in the meantime, the royal wizard discovers a nefarious spell of forgetfulness that's affecting the land and hires you to discover its origins.

You will then need to explore the kingdom and its immediate surroundings, jump through plenty of hoops to get access to an ancient library, put a stop to the machinations of evil wizards, and reunite the king with his magic crown that allows him to muster a large-enough force to repel the invasion.

Even for a dungeon crawler, the game's setting and story are very basic, but charming in their earnest simplicity. You have your wizards and their towers, dwarves that invariably mine a tad too deeply, marauding greenskins causing all sorts of troubles, and princesses with the worst luck when it comes to getting married.

Pint-sized Dungeons, Full-sized Dragons

In gameplay terms, the above is represented by an expansive world map you navigate one tile at a time. This map is infested with all sorts of monsters, but those tend to be mostly harmless compared to the dangers lurking in the many dungeons scattered across the land.

Apart from dungeons, you can stumble onto friendly towns (represented by a menu screen as opposed to Might and Magic's physical spaces), castles, and various dwellings housing quest-givers, attribute-boosting masters, and just assorted NPCs. And so, in order to eventually complete your grand quest, you'll be signing up for a heap of optional ones and then delving into various inhospitable places to earn some sweet levels and even sweeter loot.

Some of the game's side quests are really simplistic and exist mostly to point you to their adjacent dungeons, while others are more involved and send you all over the map in search of rare ingredients or hard-to-find items.

One of the best examples is a miner who wants a special dwarven pickaxe to dislodge a rare gem from a nearby mine. So, you go searching for the dwarves. But when you find them, turns out their anvil got stolen, and when you retrieve that, you're then tasked with finding a bunch of ore that's hidden all over the map so that they can forge you that pickaxe.

And seeing how after the first few areas, the game opens up and allows you to go pretty much wherever, with little to no hand holding, stuff like that adds a nice element of exploration into the mix.

What's also great is that the game doesn't seem to have any sort of level scaling, so you never know which areas are level-appropriate and where you should be going. You just go, see where you can find enemies you can defeat, flee from those you can't, and occasionally stumble onto some enclave of weaker foes you've managed to miss and go on a bit of a power trip.


And if you leverage the game's systems just right, you may find yourself punching way above your weight class. What do you do when you stumble upon a dungeon inhabited by a veritable horde of fire wizards that destroy your party without breaking a sweat? Well, if you've been stashing some fire resist gear away for an occasion just like this, you can run back to town, equip everyone with the right stuff, have your Wizard cast a spell that further amplifies those resistances, and then go back to the dungeon and laugh at the puny fireballs being thrown at you.

Speaking of going in and out of dungeons. If you know your Might and Magic, you're probably familiar with the old Town Portal-Lloyd's Beacon combo. Well, in Legends of Amberland you have Griffins instead. When outside of a dungeon, you can summon one from the map screen and get "teleported" to any tile you have previously visited. This is plenty convenient when you want to level up, deal with some nasty status effect, or sell some loot. However, when paired with how generous the game is with clearing its fog of war, this convenience can make the world feel smaller than it is.

Alternatively, you can rest while inside dungeons. You can go for a quick rest that restores your special ability charges plus some of your health, or a full rest that brings you back to full and restores your spellcasters' mana on top of it. Both of these are capped at three uses before you have to go back to town and restock your provisions.

And as for the dungeons themselves, unfortunately, here I think lies the game's biggest weakness. Sprawling elaborate dungeons are a pretty important part of the whole dungeon crawler experience, and Legends of Amberland, sadly, doesn't have those.

A great dungeon crawler dungeon should have puzzles and riddles scattered throughout. It should have challenging encounters waiting around every corner. Its dangers should include traps and navigational hazards. Ideally, it should have some theme or a trick to it, so that you have to complete some task to reach your goal. Secrets are also a must.

Well, Legends of Amberland has no puzzles or riddles, or tricks. It doesn't even have any secrets, as far as I can tell. In fact, I was mostly watching the minimap instead of the actual game screen during my playthrough, as there wasn't anything to miss, and it was much easier to navigate using the map.

Basically, all you do here is go inside a fairly straightforward dungeon, fight a bunch of monsters, loot some treasure chests, and on occasion flip a switch to open a nearby door. You don't even get any exploration or traversal spells of the kind you'd expect from a Might and Magic-inspired game. Hopefully, this gets improved in the sequel.

Now, most of the writing that contextualizes all of this ranges between serviceable and good. Occasionally though, it dips to the point where it's only barely above NPCs straight up telling you, "Adventurers, I want you to go to dungeon X and retrieve item Y for me."

Just in general, the game really could have used an editor, a second pair of eyes to go over the text, and maybe the systems too.

For example, the game has a fairly unique way of scaling damage - your characters have a baseline damage stat determined by their class and attributes, that's then modified by the weapon they wield. Starting weapons add about 100% to the base damage, while some rare artifacts can go all the way up to 190%.

In practice, this works fairly well, but it also makes all the different weapon types not matter at all. Axes deal more critical hits when wielded by dwarves, but apart from that, all the other weapons are identical. But then some of the weapons you find have added effects, like a chance to attack multiple enemies at once. To me, it seems obvious that all the different weapon types could've used a unique always-present modifier like that just to set them apart.

Gather Your Party in a Blob Before Venturing Forth

When it comes to creating your party, the game has a fairly robust system where you have six basic classes and four races, each with several subraces. And then, characters of a certain race have access to unique race-based variants of those basic classes that offer some special features, like Humans being able to become Champions instead of regular Knights and deal less damage in general, but be better at fighting evil spellcasters.


The game's combat is turn-based. Unlike in those classic Might and Magic games, here you can't start a fight by firing some arrows or spells at your foes. Instead, you have to walk into an enemy and that starts an encounter.

The game has an interesting approach to initiative, where your foes generally get two attacks per turn that happen at different times, while your heroes' turn order is determined by their position in the formation. Your three middle characters are considered your front line and will be getting attacked most often, while the outer four will usually only have to deal with AoE damage.

Despite being turn-based, the game's combat system is lightning-fast. Your front-liners are your main damage dealers here, with your spellcasters performing a more supporting role - healing and buffing your party. The game does have some offensive spells, but during the early game these tend to cost too much mana, and by the time you get to the late game, most enemies have resistances and immunities, severely limiting the effectiveness of your offensive magic.

Apart from spells and magic, your characters have special combat skills determined by their class. So, for example, your Knights will be able to attack all enemies in front of them, while your Bards will restore a bit of health and mana for your party. These range from borderline useless to somewhat weak, especially considering you can only use them once before resting.

In fact, the main challenge in Legends of Amberland comes not from individual encounters, but instead from your ability to manage your party's health and mana pools (provided you're someone who doesn't consider resting after every fight and then teleporting back to town to restock your provisions a fun and viable strategy), and equipping your heroes with the right gear for the job.

The game's itemization is one of its best aspects, mainly due to the way it handles encumbrance. A characters' class is the main thing that determines how much gear they can equip, with their race, attributes and certain items further increasing their carrying capacity. And it's all balanced in such a way that you usually can't equip enough gear to cover all your bases that include physical armor, elemental resistances, and status effect immunities. As a result, making sure you're prepared for the challenges ahead becomes a neat challenge.

Another interesting idea here is the way armor works. On the most basic level, it merely blocks a certain amount of damage from every attack directed at your characters. But, its value actually scales with your characters' levels, and so, the same piece of armor works better for a high-level character than it does for a novice.

And just in general, the game has plenty of these neat little ideas that make the whole thing quite fun even despite its overly simplistic approach to the actual dungeon crawling.

Technical Information

Now, I don't know if it's just me, but every screenshot of the game makes it look like it's being rendered at a wrong aspect ratio or something, with both monsters and terrain looking kind of squished, for lack of a better word.

To my great surprise, actually playing the game dispels this illusion and the whole thing looks quite neat and cheerful in an old-school pixelated kind of way.

The game's audio effects are a bit limited but get the job done, and the same can be said about its music - it sounds nice, but the game could've used a bit more of it.

The UI and controls can take a bit of getting used to, but they work just fine. By the looks of it, you can play the game by using either just your mouse or your keyboard, but as is usually the case with games like these, a combination of both works best.

The game uses a proprietary engine that I can't really fault in in any way. I've not encountered any crashes or bugs during my playthrough, and the game saves and loads lightning-fast without using too much resources.

Conclusion

While its dungeon design and certain oversimplifications preclude Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown from reaching the same heights as the games it's clearly inspired by, some of its unique and fresh ideas make it more than worthy of a playthrough.

And if the game's developer can build upon these ideas for the sequel, then that one may very well turn out great.
 

Dorateen

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,332
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
Good review. Pretty much everything is spot on. The only thing I would mention is that there have been numerous updates to the game since its release, which further tweaked the systems.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,232
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.silverlemurgames.com/2023/01/10/legends-of-amberland-version-1-27-1/

Legends of Amberland version 1.27.1​

Version 1.27.1 released

A trivial update to fix one bug. The previous version had third party libraries upgrade which turned out to contain a bug which was fixed in the next version of the library. It affected only v1.27 since it was the only version which had the specific library version which contained the bug. The bug was causing problems with audio playback. This version upgrades that library to the newest version and therefore removes the problem.

– [fix] Updated third party libraries to the newest version which fixes the audio bug introduced in the third party libraries update introduced in v1.27. In short, there was an audio problem which occurred only in v1.27 and this fixes it.
 

xuerebx

Erudite
Joined
Aug 20, 2008
Messages
1,001
Had this in my library for a while, and finally got around to play it. It's VERY similar to the early M&M games, but I played those a few years ago so it's not an issue.

Quick question for those in the know, is there a "repeat" hotkey outside of combat? For example, you use the heal spell and what to repeat it again on the same character or another party member.

Also, as a general rule of thumb, use attribute points to increase strength for fighters and willpower for mages/healer, or should I spread the points more intelligently? The game doesn't feel hard right now (but only played for 3 hours) so I've been successful with this approach...for now.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom