Amberstar
 

Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review & Download

This was an excellent RPG. Huge, full of character, very nice graphics (on the Atari ST I played it on, well, technicaly a Mega STE but same thing), a joy to play. I can't comment on the PC version, but I guess it shouldn't be too different, so play this game! :-)

The game runs just fine without any problems :w00t: But there is one spot that when you start for the first time on my Amiga back in time, you can create your character to play the game, in this version the "makechar.exe" don't work :eeeeeh: , if anyone try the game and make this 'exe work, please share your knowledge here with as.... :cheers:

Nice review! I was writing my own, but at this speed, it would have been ready sometime next year... ;)

It should be noted that the graphics and especially the soundtrack are much better in the amiga version than this PC port, so if you want to experience this game in its full potential I advise you to download the amiga version and play it with UAE. Same goes for the follow up title, Ambermoon.

i love this game, for me one of the best rpg ever. german always do good job. I played it on ST and played it on PC 3years ago and same good feeling. I downloaded the game from the official site and I think there was no problem with character creation. but I think the game guides you /thalion/ to be a warior so no need to change... play it it s great and also ambermoon! same authors made also albion so when you played it is easy to control the game... t

I played the game recently so I will write a guide here for you (only on a few things) since it´d be shame to forget all that stuff again ( :crazy: ). Hope it helps.

First thing: I don´t know about this version but all those english versions I found have a rather annoying bug. You can find some potions (I think 11 or so) which increase your weapon attack power by 1-3. At the point you use these potions the game crashes usually... That´s rather unfortunate since these potions can make the game much easier. Just think of a fighter with 10 attacks per round and a 60-damage-scimitar. Funny thing is that every german version I found has a graphic bug instead. There is a fix out there for those versions but it doesn´t help with the screwed graphics inside sansris temple. If you´re patient and using the minimap frequently this should be no problem though.
It´s also difficult to create your own character under Windows XP. You will need a proper bootdisk (try the one here on abandonia) in order to run makechar.exe and afaik your HD has to be FAT-formatted. However I really can´t imagine it would be fun playing with the standard character.
Some items are also messed up. The bow of Sobek is one one of those. Actually it would be one of the best bows for rangers in the game if there wasn´t this "little" flaw. The bow uses two hands when equipped, so unless you got three hands you will find it difficult to equip arrows as well. But you can use it in melee combat if you want or you can use the weak combat enchantment on the bow until it runs out of charges and disappears from your inventory. Rings are also weird: you can only equip one ring although there are two slots for rings on the character screen. Maybe this works in the Amiga version of the game.
Most annoying thing about this game is probably the VERY limited inventory and the fact that you can´t store items anywhere. You can only sell or destroy them. Unless you like running back to a shop every five minutes you will probably just want to leave a lot of loot behind. Money also weighs a ton but there is plenty in the game anyways. No need to be greedy... but if you are and it really stings your heart to leave all this nice glittering gold behind you can at least buy some gems for about 1400 gold in Gemstone and carry those around instead (they weigh almost nothing). Those can be sold for half the price again later (for a bit more if you sell them to this moving dwarven NPC in the elven village).

And here are some general hints about the character creation:
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1) Attributes:

Strength: affects carrying weight
Intelligence: affects amount of spell points
Dexterity: affects... uhm... I don´t know... maybe your lockpicking skill?
Speed: affects combat order (important one)
Constitution: affects amount of health points
Charisma: affects barter prices at shops
Luck: affects... erm... same with dexterity... maybe it affects eveything a bit?
Magic resistance: ability to block harmful spells (useless since you can only raise it via the spell anti-magic or with certain items and only to a small degree. Almost every character has a magic resistance of 0. 20 is around the best you will find...)

There are two areas in the game which will trigger events to raise (or lower in one case) your attributes. The affected attributes are:

Strength (max 10 points)
Intelligence (max 10 points)
Dexterity (max 15 points)
Constitution (max 15 points)
Charisma (lowered by max 15 points I think - no gain)

I think there is one more attribute which can be raised by 15 points but I am unsure. The only attributes which cannot be raised in any permanent way are Charisma, Luck and Magic Resistance. I may also be wrong with the exact numbers actually... uhm... The places to raise those attributes are Sansri´s Temple and the castle of Manyeyes inside this whirlpool thing somewhere on the ocean. The problem is that those events can only be triggered once so you may want to visit those places (or at least the direct locations where those events take place) when your group is complete.
There is also another way to raise strength and speed: You can find some red and blue mushrooms in the game which increase one of those stats by five each (blue for strength, red for speed). You can give them to Mera the witch to get this nice bonus (works with every character in your group, just give him/her the mushroom and speak to Mera). Mera can be found in a house near the rangers guild (a long way west of Twinlake). And there are around 12 mushrooms of each type in the game I think.

2) The classes you can choose:

Beside your main character there are also two other characters which do not have a profession yet. Those two are Silk and Gryban. Silk wants to become a thief and Gryban wants to be a paladin. If you´re kinda heartless you can just shatter their dreams and develop them as you see them fit once they have been recruited.
So about the classes...

Warrior:
The guild is very easy to find... Most people will probably become a warrior first time they play the game because they don´t know about the other places yet. Good thing about the warrior is that he gains the biggest amount of HP every level (well depending on your constitution of course) and also the biggest number of attacks per round (every 3 levels :eeeeeh: ). Beside that he has extremely low XP-requirements (only 30 XP more for each level). When your warrior claims level 40 your black mage will probably still be around 20 or so. Another good thing is that a warrior can equip almost everything. He is of the best damage-dealers in the game, especially in combination with a nice upgraded weapon. Much better than a black mage when it comes down to killing single tough opponents. If it were not for the extremely limiting inventory and certain instant-death-situations in the game it would probably be easy to finish the game with a single warrior. However, the big downside is that the warrior has very limited abilities and cannot cast magic at all. But actually you can live with that...

Paladin:
The paladin guild is also very easy to find. Marillion´s ghost will even give you directions (Twinlake graveyard). You can find it somewhere in Crystal, the town north of Twinlake. Paladins are even better at defending than warriors are and can also cast white magic to a nice extent (50 % success chance is quite good actually). A paladin with a parade shield can have a defense skill above 100 % which means that he can block every attack (this is definitely uber, huh?). I think the warrior can only reach 95 with a parade shield, but I am not too sure there. Paladins gain new attacks every 4 levels and have medium level requirements (+50 XP every level). This makes the paladin a capable warrior and an emergency spellcaster if necessary. You will not be able to max out every skill the paladin has though. If you don´t want a white magician or a fighter then choose the paladin. But choosing a warrior and a white mage would be a better idea in regards of efficiency.

Ranger:
The guild is to the far west of Twinlake, somewhere on an island near the shore. Rangers can do everything but they also suck at everything. The ranger sadly has bad combat values. 70 % attack, 70 % defense sound ok actually but it is definitely not enough to replace a warrior or paladin. And why? Because he has the highest XP-requirements (+90 XP each level) and he only gains attacks every 5 levels (which means he will not deal all that much damage). He also sucks at spellcasting (30 % success chance), so he can hardly replace a mage. His only advantage is really that he can learn almost everything. From casting white and grey magic to lockpicking and fighting. He can equip many things.

Mages:
Mages are your specialized spell casters. They almost never fail a spell (95 % base chance once trained), they get the most spell-learning-points and spell points. Grey mages are good for buffs and other helpful spells (light for example), white mages are basically healers (they can also cast stun, sleep, etc.), and black mages are good to destroy many weak opponents at once. You may need this in some situations but normally casting is very sp-intense which means that you will either have to rest a lot or do the fighters do most of the work. Another downside is that they can almost equip nothing. The tower of black mages can only be reached by boat in the beginning of the game. Search the tree in the inn of Twinlake to find 5000 gold to get one, then move the coast down a long (!) way till you reach a desert. There should be some mountains enclosed by deep water further down the coast. Move in there (via the river) to find the tower at the end. To remove those rocks blocking the entrance you will need some item found in one of the flowers in the tavern of crystal (flower room with the gome). The password for the short way was "Nikademus" in the german version of the game. May be a bit to tough to take the long way early in the game. The tower of white mages is located in a forest north-east of Twinlake. The password is "Kasimir" but I suggest you take the long way, since there are some mushrooms to be found behind a secret wall. No dangers here. The tower of the grey wizards is somewhere north of the rangers guild (or east of the elven village), also on an island close to the coast. The long way is dangerous in the beginning (but worthwhile later, as always) but I unfortunately already forgot the password... Maybe it was Landonis.
Level requirements are generally high for mages. The grey mage buffs increase your abilities by 5 % per level of the spell (lvl III is the maximum). The duration should also increase from 1 hour to 6 and 24 hours (again I am unsure...).

Monk:
Same problem the ranger has. Just a little better at spellcasting and slightly worse at fighting. He can only cast grey magic and he gains levels far too slow (+80 XP each level I think). Cannot equip too many things. The temple of Mork is west of the Godsbane (north-west) of Crystal, somehwere in the huge swamp. Say Mork to the riddle mouth to gain entry. You may want to choose a monk if you don´t like grey mages.

Thief:
Useless. Only thing he is good at is leveling quickly and opening locks. However, any character with a lockpicking ability around 40 should not have problems opening a lock in the game (with save/reload that is). Also the silver ring adds 15 to your lockpicking skill. Finding and disarming traps is completely useless, as is the skill listening. But then again, there are some very nice special items for the thief class in the game.

3) Characters:

There are a few companions you can take along. I will list those I can remember (there should be no more, but it could be I forgot one):

Silk: Human no profession, lvl 1, found in Twinlake tavern
Gryban: Human no profession, lvl 1, found in Crystal tavern
Torg: Half-orc warrior, lvl 3-6, dungeon next to Twinlake
Trasric: Half-elf black mage, lvl 3-6, Crystal tavern
Crag: Gnome white mage, lvl 4-6, guild of white mages
Satine: Human grey mage, lvl 4-6, guild of grey mages
Drobanir: Dwarf warrior, lvl 4, Gemstone tavern
Lady who´s name I forgot: Human ranger, lvl 7, ship´s end (in the area you end up after flushing down that whirlpool - higher level area)
Guy who´s name I forgot: Gnome thief, lvl 6-7, castle ruins north of the elven village
Another guy who´s name I forgot: Human monk, lvl 4-6, Snakesign village - island of Sansri (difficult to get there in the beginning)

You may have problems recruiting some of these because you don´t speak their language. Then you will need other characters in your group with those language skills. I am completely unsure about the exact levels of the characters, but this still helps you to see the level area they are in at least. Remember you will probably need someone with the ability to cast white magic and someone who can (at least to some extent) pick locks. If you wish you can choose up to 6 companions. There are no level requirements to recruit one of those (to recruit Satine you must have spoken with Shandra however).

Well that´s it. I wrote more than I wanted actually... :eeeeeh:
Just two more things: If you can´t find the last two parts of the amber star you prbably missed this guy in the temple of Mork. He will give you some directions. Also try to complete the castle north of the elven village soon to get that gryphon flute (best way of transportation). But that´s not easy...

Good Luck

Man you just broke my heart :cry: , Exellent, exellent :kosta: :kosta: :kosta:

yeah that game really rocked! i probably played through it 10 times or more. last time i used all the weapon upgrades on a shovel... and by the end of the game i had one mean 32 damage shovel-wielding fighting machine... real fun

by the ways if you got any questions i know the stupid game by heart so ask me.

Amberstar is still a great game, but I loved Ambermoon even more. To bad I sold my copy of Ambermoon 2 Years ago with my Amiga 2000 :cry:
is there a chance we will see ambermoon on this page?

Mmm, I once just ran around killing myself to see how long it took for different things to kill me, hard for a game to immerse me that badly.

There never was a PC version of Ambermoon, and we only have PC games on this site. You can however run an Amiga emulator and download Ambermoon right here: http://umcus.org/~alexh/

I'm having this same problem. The error message claims that a "program is trying to access the hard disk which cannot be supported." Any luck?

I was what book the game refers too when you begin a game?

This is the best RPG ever...great story and graphics are ok,too!!

Best RPG ever? That's remarkable praise. Could you offer some more concrete comparisons? How does it beat, for instance, Baldur's Gate II, or Morrowind, or Planescape: Torment, or Ultima VII, or Gothic II, etc? To be the best, you've got to beat 'em all.

All this games that you talking about are grate but for your age and time of graphics and CPU power. This is the first clue, the other is that i don't like morrowind more than i like Dark Queen of Krynn or Eye Of The Beholder !!!

I'm also having problems with the MAKECHAR

It says "This program has attempted to directly access the hard disk, which cannot be supported."

Any idea what to do?

A bug helps you to increase the power of your weapons:

Arm one of your characters with a magic weapon (e.g. Holy Sword) and use its magical powers during the following combats until it disapears. The weapon itself is now lost, but its damage-potential remains even though the character is now bare-handed. If you now arm hin with another weapon, its damage-potential is added to that of the disapeard weapon. Several repetitions possible.

This is just one of the best games of my life :)
I played it about 10 years ago without any guides, FAQs, hints, maps - anything. I didn't even have a game manual nor a rune table! I solved all the riddles, answered all passwords, drew all maps, decrypted the rune alphabet (it was damn hard) and beat the game completely. It was a real challenge but it was really worth it.
Not like today's games which can be finished in 1-2 days even without using brain ;)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Adam @ Jan 18 2006, 07:05 PM) [snapback]198388[/snapback]</div>You have to boot your computer with different settings. Just create an appropriate bootdisk (http://www.abandonia.com/main.php?nav=bootdisk), leave it in the floppy and reboot your pc. You should end up with the dos-interface. Navigate to your amberstar folder (for example c:, cd games, cd amberstar - if you are unsure about the folder names type dir to see what you can access and how it is spelled) and start makechar.exe. Now you should be able to create your own character. Take the disk out of your floppy and reboot again to end up in windows as usual. ^_^

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kosta @ Jan 24 2005, 11:24 PM) [snapback]56466[/snapback]</div>Despite all the positive press on this game, I could never get into it. It just never hooked me... although I never played over an hour or two.

I'm not sure what it is, but for me Amberstar is the best rpg game out there.
I've played it so many times, and it won't lose it's affection on me. Maybe it's
the overall feeling or the great musical score, but somehow it keeps me captivated.
Unlike the newer rpg's, it's paced really good and it's gets you hooked early on, since
the world is so open and you could do the things at your own time. It also has these
fantastic puzzles which really requires some thought.

10/10 easily in my opinion (and I've played through a lot of rpg's)!

There seems to be a bug in this game, well it certainly appears to be a bug, my paladin can´t learn spells from scroll he has well enough spell learning points but every time I try to learn a scroll it fails and the scroll disappears.
I've tried loading countless times and tried to learn a full inventory of scrolls but it always fails. Anyone encountered this?

#1 - Make sure it's a scroll that paladins can learn from
#2 - Make sure the level of the scroll isn't too high for your character

Most common mistake is using a scroll which has a spell that is too powerful for your character to learn. He must have a higher level first. This game has no bug like that, as my paladin (Gryban) has learned lots of spells. One of the most important is healing and anti-poison/blindness/paralysis spells, and for that reason Crag (White Wizard) is almost ALWAYS in my party.

I've finished this entire game several times and I've experimented with different characters and this is my usual party:

Atebash (Warrior) - Primary Melee Fighter
Torg (Warrior) - Secondary Melee Fighter
Silk (Warrior - NOT a thief!!) - Tertiary Melee Fighter
Boldin (Thief) - Primary Thief/Ranged Fighter (ditch Silk/Torg/Crag - your choice)
Trasric (Black Wizard) - Primary Spellcaster (All your main killing spells here)
Crag (White Wizard) - Secondary Spellcaster (All your main healing and protection spells here)
Gryban (Paladin) - Melee Fighter/Tertiary Spellcaster (Healing and Benefit spells)

I'll usually start with Atebash, Silk, Spike the dog, and grab Torg from Jonathan's house. Then when I'm done with Twinlake and the surrounding area I'll head north to Crystal and grab Crag who lives in a little tower in the forest south-east of Crystal. In Crystal, grab Trasric and Gryban and complete all quests. Make sure you complete "Spike's quest" (no spoilers :)) before ditching him. From here you can either take the boat and go explore the world, or head to the elven village which lies in a south-western direction from Crystal. In this elven village is the quest where you can gain one of the most important items in the game: the Eagle Flute. I'll usually ditch either Silk or Torg and grab Boldin (Thief) from the fortress across the water to the north-west. Boldin is 100% A MUST if you expect to get anywhere in this game.

An alternative to this is leaving out Crag and just keeping an extra warrior, but in this case you'll have to stock up on ALOT of herbs/scrolls/potions for healing the dreaded Blind (playing area goes black), Paralysis (Character can't move), Madness (character can't fucking do anything, completely insane and even attacks your own party :p)... Sorry if I spoiled too much :D

Well my main character is lvl 2 paladin and has 21 SLP (spell learning points?) and according to the manual you should only need 2 SLP to learn healing 1 scroll, but my character always fails.

Ok I found out what's wrong, turns out I have zero RMS.

:omg::mhh::omg::( Although the game looks promising it has a HUGE flaw!
It allows only ONE save game! So what? Well I'm gonna tell you what's what from my own experience.
So I've established a nice party and have started to get the hang on the game and it's strange and very uninformative rules. I am crawling through a dungeon, killing orcs and goblins, I enter a room which contains a teleport, naturally I enter the teleporter to see whats on the other side. On the other side is an island namely the lost island! Well that's nice but after some exploring I realise that there is NO way off the island save for another teleporter which is located behind a locked door. I had saved my game before attempting to lockpick it to save lockpicks, turns out it can´t be picked and it requires a key which I DON´T HAVE YET!
Yay! Im stuck on this god forsaken island without any chance of getting back with my only save game wasted inside this entrapment.
How is this possible? What where the creators thinking? I can´t even kill myself, the only method to do that is drowning but my characters are to good swimmers to drown. For shame!

Hehehe... don't worry my friend, I'm pretty sure this has probably happened to anyone who ever played this game. I made the same mistake myself. If you were paying closer attention, and heeded the warning on the door, then you might have had some clue that danger was within the door, and beyond the teleporter. I'm sorry to say there is nothing you can do, and you must either keep trying and kill off your characters by drowning, or reinstall the game :(. Something of this exact nature also happens again if you go to the Ancient Mines of the Dwarves to the south-east of Twinlake. IMO it's only a small flaw on the developers' part.

Luckily though, you haven't gone far into the game though, so it won't be too much of a hassle to start again ^_^ ... hopefully.

I will also warn you about the Tomb of the Pharaoh in the desert to the south. Once you enter, the entrance will close behind you, and you will have to traverse the ENTIRE tomb before getting out. And it's a pretty gigantic tomb with ALOT of monsters. So make sure you stock up on torches, food, and healing stuff before going in there. Especially torches, because if you run out of torches down there, YOU ARE DEAD!! Unless you are super lucky and find some (doubtful) or if you have a Grey Wizard that can cast Light, the game will end for you again right there.

For that matter, Amberstar has alot of places like this, where the entrance closes behind you, and you have to clear out the whole dungeon before being able to escape. If you are really wary of entering places, you could save, then copy the whole Amberstar directory somewhere (don't know if there are .SAV files inside, if there are just copy those), then enter the place, run around as usual and save where you like. If something bad happens, you can just copy back the directory (or the .SAV) files, and the game that you originally saved will be restored.

It would be wise to keep backup of your save files, there are 4 files that need to be backed up:
AUTOMAPS.VGA
AUTOMAPS.DAT
CHARDATA.VGA
PARTYDAT.SAV

To make life easier I made a batch file that copies those files into folder named backup1, the previous files in that folder are moved to backup2 which in turn are moved to backup3 which are again moved forward to backup4, the result is ordered sequence of backups where the newest backup is always in backup1 and the oldest in backup4.
After each backup the previous contains of backup4 is lost.
Naturally running backup.bat does NOT save your game, you need to save in game and then run backup.bat. The backup.bat file must be located inside the amberstar folder but you can make a shortcut of it and put it anywhere you like.

For those interested I attached the batch file to this message.

I am trying to recruit Boldin the thief, found in the dragons castle, but he says he is not interested in joining my party. Are there any prerequisites needed for him? My main character is a level 2 warrior with a Charme value of 26 or something around that. Do you need high charme for him to join? (I already opened the first puzzlemouth in the castle gardens but did not kill the dragon yet. Well I think you can picture that, since I'm on level 2 and the warrior dwarf from Gemstone is still level 7 :p )

No, I'm pretty sure there aren't any pre-requisites for getting Boldin. Having a higher Charisma level only affects the amount of gold you can receive for selling items at shops, and makes items cheaper to buy in shops. But this skill is fairly useless, as even with an almost full Charisma level, the difference is redundant. You save about 100 gold when buying stuff, so it's just a crappy attribute altogether.

What other characters do you have in your party? If you have others, you can try selecting each one and then try to have Boldin join the party. Also make sure the party isn't full, of course :p

The only other reason that a character would refuse to join you, as I've found out in my many travels, is if you let them leave the party too many times - maybe two or three, it could be different for different chars. But this probably wasn't the reason for your dilemma. And just to test it out, I fired up a game of AS, used makechar to roll my hero as low a Charisma as I could get (6 in this case), and then went straight to the castle and picked up Boldin. It worked fine. So idk what's the problem for you, try the stuff I mentioned up there.

And btw, Gelinda's castle is quite tough for your characters at the levels you mentioned, they definitely wouldn't make it. I suggest going to Crystal and completing quests there first like Lord Chancellor Drebin's quest and Orlando's quest. Hope this helps!

So for the records, I'm using the Amiga Version, v1.73
I just created a fresh character and went straight to him like you and he did not want to join.
Then I reloaded, took Silk with me (without having him join a guild) - Boldin still didn't want to join.
Finally I trained a bit, made both Silk and my main character join the fighters guild (and thus made it impossible for me to have a thief - thought this could be a trigger or something) but Boldin STILL doesn't want to join.
Now I'm stumped.
This must be a bug. Wonder if I can hack boldin into my party by hexing around the savegame.

O I forgot - I'm using the German version (there are differences between the language versions too, regarding bugs and such, if I'm not misinformed)

I just tried the German v1.93 from thalion webshrine (which are pre-installed adf files with default character). Boldin joins on that one.
So my HD install/disks are b0rked and so is my savegame.

I never played the Amiga version, so I don't know what the bugs are there. It certainly seems like a bug though, Boldin not joining. I have played the PC version extensively though, so there's a couple of bugs here that you can take advantage of if you want an upper hand on the game. Of course you can choose to simply not use them if you're a gaming 'purist' ^_^

Two of the main bugs worth mentioning are the 'Item Charge' bug, and the 'Missile Bug' as I call them. The Item Charge bug occurs when you use up all the charges in a magic item, and while the item will disappear from your inventory (make sure it's equipped before you use the last charge), all the attributes the item gave will stay with your character. For example, with the Firebasher and Frostbiter swords that you can find, give them to one of your fighters and use up the charges on both, one after another. Your fighter will now have like 40+ damage, AND an empty slot in hand to place another weapon. Not to mention that the character also retains special bonuses as well such as +LP, +SP, or +Attributes. This can be used for any equippable items such as swords, staves, helmets, brooches, armor, basically anything that has magic charges that can be used up. Think it's not fair? Well there's another bug which dis-allows you to use the "balsam" potion, which gives like +60 damage for 10 rounds to your character (the game crashes when you drink it) so I think it all evens out :)

One thing to watch out for though is a "counter-bug" which occurs if you do this too many times on other characters. You will notice that every time you exhaust a weapons charges, your main character's weapon or armor value(depending on whether it was weapon or armor that you were exhausting of charges) will be MINUSED by however much armor or damage you have from your weapon. Wait, I know this sounds confusing, but let me make it simpler. Say you have two characters. You give Firebasher to your second character and you use all the charges in order to take advantage of the bug. Your first character is holding a knife (nothing else) which has 3 damage. When you use up the last charge on the Firebasher, you will notice that your first character now has 0 attack. If you unequip the knife, the attack will go down to -3. It's the same with armor. There is however a way to get around this. Try to get the Bi-Handed sword from Sansri's Temple, and the Boots or Clothes of Moira from wherever. As you may know, both are cursed items (Bi-handed sword does -5 damage, and armor of Moira gives 0 armor), but I'm sure you can already guess how they may be used to cheat this bug. Just equip them on your main character, then exhaust the charges on your weapon or armor. You'll have to pay a healer to destroy them for you afterwards though.

The second bug, the 'Missile Bug', occurs when you hold a missile weapon (Bow, Longbow, Sling) in your hand, and instead of holding an arrow in your right, hold a SHIELD (Towershield, Shield of Parry, Buckler). Next time you attack, your character will fire the shield as if it were an arrow, and the shield's defense/attack and anything else you gain while holding it will be added to your character! But the shield will disappear, which means you are free to put another shield in and watch your defense count soar! Be warned though that having multiple shields of the same type in your inventory as the kind you are firing, they will all disappear. Best to use a combination of roundshields, bucklers, small towershields, and towershields. You can stack as many shields as you want on your character, and unlike the other bug, this one has no negative side effects. So when you find that chest in the Castle of Manyeyes with like 20 shields in it, don't sell them :p ... You know what to do.

I'm not sure if these bugs are present in the Amiga or German versions, so you should test them out if they work.

I have to tell, that I finished Amberstar about 5 times and I have favourite party:
Wolfus (warrior - main character)
Silk (thief - Twinlake)
Gryban (paladin - Crystal)
Trasric (b.wiz - Crystal)
Crag (w.wiz - tower)
Drobanir (warrior - Gemstone)

I tried other characters (g.wiz from g.wiz tower, monk from Snakesign and thief from dragon's island), but I think they are not as good as my fav. characters...

I agree with all except Silk... It's just way too easy to go to Gelinda's castle and pick up Boldin, who is already a (lvl 6 IIRC) Thief.

But Silk have nice moustache :D AND! Thief in Ambermoon said Silk was first guildmaster of new found thieves guild. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it helps to build atmosphere :)

LOL hehehe

Silk is the new guildmaster huh. In AS the guild mistress was Breth's sister or something... :p
I really need to get around to playing Ambermoon... :mhh:
Are you using WinUAE?

Most of the time real Amiga 1200, outside of home WinUAE on notebook. Great way to use WinUAE (not only for beginners) is http://hobring.esero.net/games.htm - there is step-by-step walkthrough and also prepared easy-to-use "packs" with popular Amiga games.

Have you played the version here on Abandonia, the DOS version? If so can you tell me... how does the graphics compare to the Amiga version? Better or worse?

Because I heard that the Amiga's gfx are better, but when I look at screenshots I don't see much of a difference :dunno:

I'll try it...

OK, after test I have to say DOS version's GFX is nearly the same as Amiga version, but there are some smoother color transitions (e.g. cursor). Music is pretty bad in DOS version (at least if compared with Amiga). If you plan to play Amberstar again, try Amiga version for sure. The music is worth it!

Hi,
there was a bug in Atari ST version but I can not remember how to replicate exactly but it allow to multiple items in you inventory so you could find one piece of AmberStar and multiple it 12 times :D !

Bug was when you save game and when ask for game disk to put data disk or something like that and items get duplicated in you inventory.

Maybe I will setup my old Atari ST again to try to replicate this bug exactly but neither way it was not very useful coz you could equip your party with 9999 gems, 6 scimitar, 99 hail storm scrolls... and that was not fun at all.

Lol, that actually sounds like it might be entertaining to try out ^_^
I'd be interested in learning how to replicate it.

Good old rpg days... In Amiga Version I did find a "trainer", If u had ever found the save folder witch was one in the game you could keep the intentory items from the save before you end game and overcopied in the save folder of a new game, but u needed a save just before you end the final chamber room.

And I personally go with the senario, I train everyone what he wanted to be, Silk as thief, Gryban as paladin, Satin btw is a must member only for antimagic, ofc Tarsric :P and Drobanir.

Hope someone will make the last part finally.

Great game! :OK: It is running fine on Win XP under dosbox 0.74.

A good way to acquire useful magic items and weapons which can't be gotten anywhere else in the game is to temporarily recruit new party members and then strip them of their valuables. I know it is immoral but you can feel better if you leave them with some gold and a bit of food. :) For instance Boldin the thief has a re-usable long range weapon which suddenly made my thief Silk into a much more valuable asset. Crag also kindly donated his goodies to the cause.

My party..

Main character as Paladin
Torg
Drobanir
Silk as thief
Satine
Trasric

Actually Spike the Dog was very useful as biting warrior early in the game until I picked up Drobanir. Having no white wizard works fine, to compensate have a competent Paladin and carry plenty of healing stuffs. Always substitute plants and herb packet for potions where possible, because they are lighter.

Stuck at Pharaoh's Tomb
 

So, after a long, long trek through Relanukh's tomb, my party was so weighted down with flails from the mummies (hey, those things sell for a bundle...) that when I got to the treasure room, I could only carry the contents of three of the chests. I figured that I'd just be able to come back for the rest, and checked the walkthrough which also said I could come back. Only when I got back, the treasure room was sealed, behind the door that led into it there's just a blank wall. Tried every tool, various spells, throwing myself into every bloody teleport in the Graves area, but I'm stuck. And I need to get back in there to get the piece of the Amberstar that's there, and the gems for Swampstation. Has anyone else came across this problem? (and is my game pretty much screwed now?) I'm playing the PC version, so I can't get the cheats working either.

I have the same problem. Is there any way to get to the treasure room twice?

amberstar - controls?
 

Hi,
anyone knows about a basic manual to this game?
I don't know any of the controls. I can move around freely, but I have no idea, how to interact with the surroundings (read signs near doors, talk to the people running around the city), and I dont even know how to acces the menu (to save, load, exit, etc).

Unfortunately there is no way back into the treasure room. Basically you're screwed, time to restart the game.

You also.

Just right click on the navigational arrow panel on the bottom right, and it will be replaced by a new menu with additional options.

Hi, i watched a amiga lets play, and it seems that character can parry the same turn they are attacking, while on my st version, i never triggered a parry while attacking? I am wrong? It does change the difficulty a lot.

Reboot of this and a few other games
 

I know this is an old site, but with such nostalgic games, I was wondering how to legally go about possibly attempting doing a reboot with something live RPG Maker.

I'm not sure how to go about searching for material, other than here and the typical google searches, though. I know the games with some of the original documentation is available, but doubt it would be easy to look at source code and such.

Let me know if anyone thinks this would be a good idea and any insight on how to go about first steps as I have all the dev tools.

Also, feel free to tell me if I am being batsh*t crazy as well :)