Ambermoon
Second part of an unfinished Amiga RPG trilogy.
Ambermoon is a role-playing game developed and published by Thalion Software, released in 1993 for the Amiga. It was the second part of an unfinished trilogy, following Amberstar (1992). The game is noted for its combination of 2D outdoor exploration and 3D texture-mapped dungeons, and for its large game world spanning islands and moons.
Quick Facts
- Title
- Ambermoon
- Developer
- Thalion Software
- Producer
- Erik Simon
- Designer
- Karsten Köper / Erik Simon
- Programmer
- Jurie Horneman / Michael Bittner
- Artist
- Monika Krawinkel / Erik Simon / Thorsten Mutschall
- Writer
- Karsten Köper
- Composer
- Matthias Steinwachs
- Released
- 1993
- Genre
- Role-playing
- Modes
- Single player
- Platforms
- Amiga
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Ambermoon began development in April 1992 and was released around Easter 1993. The player assumes the role of the grandson of the hero of Amberstar, sent by his grandfather to investigate a new threat to the land of Lyramion. The game features turn-based battles animated in front of static backgrounds, and a large world that includes not only the islands of Lyramion but also the moons of the game world. The player interacts with many non-player characters, some of whom become companions, and the perspective changes depending on the active character—for example, a dwarf shows a lower first-person view due to short height.
Reader's Guide
Ambermoon was a major success for Thalion Software but ultimately failed to prevent the company's collapse before the final part of the planned trilogy could be begun. The game was only ever released in German for the Amiga; an English version was planned and developed but never published, though the last beta (v1.07) was released in 1998 through the Thalion Webshrine. The game's graphics mix 2D outdoor areas with 3D dungeons using a real-time texture mapping system that producer Erik Simon described as 'normally impossible' on 16-bit machines. The soundtrack was composed by Berlin music student Matthias Steinwachs. The world maps are four times larger than those in Amberstar, each world having a total surface area of 800x800 squares. Due to the game's high-quality graphics and large size, extra disks were necessary, and most players had to endure frequent disk changes and long load times. Part of the Thalion team later went to Blue Byte, which produced the graphically similar game Albion, a spiritual sequel. In 2022, a fan expansion called Ambermoon Advanced was announced, with two of five planned episodes released in January 2023. On May 14, 2023, the surviving source code for Ambermoon and Amberstar was uploaded to GitHub by programmer Jurie Horneman.
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