Today I got an official announcement from Pineapple Works, the porting company who was tirelessly working on Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown port for Nintendo Switch in the last months. The port is done and ready and it’s going to be released this month! The exact date is 20 April 2020. Yay!
Legends of Amberland on Nintendo eShop
Here is how it could look on your desk, just look at it and tell me you can resist!
Version 1.13.3 released
Small fixes.
– [fix] Option speed buttons always greyed out regardless of selection (bug introduced in v1.13.2).
– [fix] Sometimes damage of monsters being incorrect after loading a save file.
Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown available on GOG!
After a long journey Legends of Amberland finally arrived on GOG store. This ancient online store contains tons of old games which inspired the game and it’s a perfect fit for it. I’m quite happy it will be available there alongside so many great classics I remember from my childhood!
www.gog.com/game/legends_of_amberland_the_forgotten_crown
In addition, there will be GOG Connect enabled (for one week) which is a nice option for all people who bought the game elsewhere and wanted to have all their games on their GOG library.
Also, all people who bought the “Support The Developer Edition” via the official website (before GOG release) will be getting GOG keys which I will be sending shortly.
Version 1.13.2 released
This version fixes two bugs, one of them being quite annoying and adjusted the map a tiny little bit to allow you to uncover 100% of the overworld. Plus standard improvements.
– [misc] Slightly adjusted the map to allow you to uncover the whole map (cosmetic change which allows you to uncover the whole mountain range). It does not affect the gameplay in anyway, just changed some mountains to water tiles, it does not open any new routes or anything. It’s purely for people who want to uncover the whole map.
– [misc] Improved monster dying animation.
– [misc] Changed description of two locations.
– [misc] Spelling fixes.
– [interface] Adjusted the color of an unselected button.
– [fix] Hit icon sometimes not being displaying if the monster attacks.
– [fix] Highlighting non-existant characters during combat if less than 7 characters are selected upon game start.
It’s official now, Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown is coming to Nintendo Switch this year!
In the last year I was pestered by various individuals about the Nintendo Switch. They claimed it would be a sure hit on Switch. For me, never really playing on consoles, it was a black magic and I was kind of sceptical. But why not I thought, if it was to be someone else doing the port I could go for it. Shortly after I started looking for someone to do the port, I was contacted by a mysterious company called Pineapple Works. They preyed their eyes on Amberland for a while and were just waiting for the right time to make the offer. They were quite enthusiastic about it and the deal was fair and decent. So, I went with it.
Soon after, when we met at GIC in Poland, they handed me their Nintendo with Legends of Amberland running. I started to play and… then it instantly struck me, IT MIGHT WORK! No, IT WILL WORK! If someone like me, who never owned a console could instantly go into it and play it and it was so flawless, and mind you it was just a quick dirty tech version for my eyes only, then how it will be perceived by people who know how to play and after it’s finished and polished? That’s the time when I believed in it.
Many months later, after a long and uneasy journey they said the Nintendo Switch version is ready. One thing I would like to mention and assure you is that I was involved in the process and I can guarantee that the story and gameplay was not watered down in any way. It is a faithful and a very accurate port, just as the author envisioned. The people from Pineapple Works made a really good job! It’s a fine port for sure.
The Nintendo Switch release is planned for late March 2020 and it will be localized to several languages. The exact date and exact languages will be disclosed later.
Steam Trading Cards available for Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown
Trading Cards for Legends of Amberland have been finished and approved by Valve.
There are 15 cards showing various NPCs from the game and 10 emoticons (monsters mostly), the maximum allowed.
Steam Cloud Saves support for all games
Today all games (Stellar Monarch, Automobile Tycoon, Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown) have been upgraded to support Steam Could Saves.
In addition all future games will have this feature from the very start.
Version 1.13 released
This version focused on spells balance adjustments and improving 3D perspective (by popular request “make it look more like in those old games” and making it look better on odd resolutions). In addition the first linguistic QA was completed, it’s a bit rough but like 95% of spelling mistakes should be dealt with in this version.
– [balance] Power Heal / Mass Power Heal higher efficiency and lower cost.
– [balance] Offensive spells adjusted, especially the high level ones which got cheaper.
– [balance] Rebalanced target all enemies vs single target spells.
– [balance] Cold spells rebalanced (overall those have now a bigger range of damage but slightly higher average damage than fire spells).
– [misc] 3D perspective greatly improved. Now it looks more like in the old games and overall feels more natural.
– [misc] Minimum screen resolution changed to 1280×720 (so, one more screen resolution supported).
– [misc] Spell check (all text files), first QA pass completed.
– [fix] End screen was showing an incorrect years passed count.
– [fix] In some cases the monsters damage marker disappearing too fast.
Version 1.12 released
Technical update, several 3rd party libraries were updated to the newest versions also a few interface tweaks and minor fixes. Note that if you experience any technical problems (which might be possible since in this version many libraries were changed) you can roll back to the old version via Steam/Beta branch system (also please report that you experienced problems).
– [misc] Technical upgrade. Now the application should launch faster.
– [misc] Adjusted some audio files.
– [misc] Added to Wizard’s Council quest tooltip tips about location of Council Members.
– [balance] Champion’s Helmet encumbrance reduced by 1 (Champion was staring over encumbered due to starting equipment encumbrance which was very confusing).
– [interface] Added Over Encumbered warning to both Damage and Arcane tooltips (since those are affected by it).
– [interface] Fixed map buttons showing on the map area in some resolutions.
– [interface] Fixed game over & congratulate screens so the “Back to Main Menu” button does not cover the “Quests completed” on some resolutions.
– [fix] Elfengard was giving a second Council Letter after the quest was finished.
– [fix] Other tiny low priority technical fixes (not affecting the gameplay).
Version 1.11 released
A small post release update.
– [misc] Finished 3 missing texts for town mayors. I forgot those for v1.00 release.
– [misc] Linguistic check: items (partial).
– [interface] Added current MP on Magic screen.
