Ambermoon - Open Source Remake in Progress

Indie Retro News reports that an open source remake of Ambermoon is in progress.

Originally released in 1993 for the Amiga by Thalion Software, Ambermoon was the second part of an unfinished trilogy and sequel to Amberstar that was only released in Germany. In was an incredible RPG for its time, and featured 3D graphics that were considered revolutionary for the Amiga, but sadly for the company it couldn't save them from collapse.



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How to run the game

I got some questions of how to run the game:

You need the original game data (either ADF files or extracted files like Party_char.amb etc).

Put these files next to the downloaded executable file called Ambermoon.net.exe.

If you have not yet, install the latest .NET framework for Windows.

The game only runs on Windows as of now.

Links :1) Source 2) Detailed Info

More information.

Nice have always wanted to play that but am to stupid to get an amiga emulator to work

I always get excited about the potential to improve an old game with new graphics/music/bugfixes or whatever really. Thats why I dig emulators and projects like ScummVM. Things like Daggerfall Unity shows what can be possible.

Excellent news. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Silver
I always get excited about the potential to improve an old game with new graphics/music/bugfixes or whatever really.

Languages. The game is really easy to translate now, apparently. Reverse engineering has come a long way for the game.

Originally Posted by Arhu
Excellent news. Thanks!


Languages. The game is really easy to translate now, apparently. Reverse engineering has come a long way for the game.

True that. I'm hopeful that some pc-98 japanese games get translated and updated.

Just to play Ambermoon you dont need this, there are ready made packages with WinUA to play it without hassle.
But i guess when it finally works there is the possibility to actually start to improve things.. highres textures, bugfixes, new adventures / graphics and so on? Looking forward to that.

Very nice game! Contains cute animations on the world map and a deep RPG system. Checking out this gameplay, now I remember, why I got bored with the weird combat realization.

Originally Posted by mercy
Very nice game! Contains cute animations on the world map and a deep RPG system. Checking out this gameplay, now I remember, why I got bored with the weird combat realization.

That gameplay is from Amberstar, the predecessor. Ambermoon has very much improved graphics, but the type of combat is the same, and its perfect!

They'd need to come to gog or steam for me to play them, but I loved Amberstar back in the decade.

Imho its somewhat misleading, as "Open Source Remake" kinda implies that now it's something everyone can play for free.

From what I understand it's just a toolset to make the original game data run. But you would still need to own the game. So it's nothing like Daggerfall or whatnot where developers chose to make the game free for everyone.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Imho its somewhat misleading, as "Open Source Remake" kinda implies that now it's something everyone can play for free.

From what I understand it's just a toolset to make the original game data run. But you would still need to own the game. So it's nothing like Daggerfall or whatnot where developers chose to make the game free for everyone.

The reason behind this is the fact, that NOONE in the world knows for sure who owns the rights to the Amber-series in 2020.

I actually was in contact with an old acquaintance of mine who is managing director / shareholder of the Schmidtgruppe which is the last known owner of the Thalion copyrights. They actually produce and distribute slot machines and manage casinos. They probably came into the posession because a former manager (Werner Vens) bought the rights in 1995 and was named CEO until 2005 when Thalion was abolished. My contact was Arne Schmidt who told me about some promising leads to the rights whereabouts but the communication went silent after a planned meeting had to be canceled.

I still feel sorry about that, but I am very positive about one thing: The rights still belong to the Schmitgruppe which won't do anything about it (eg. not releasing the rights or code of Ambermoon to the public) as long as noone offers them something to make it worthwhile. Sad but true.

Ah, interesting. Would have guessed it's at UBI, which brought out the "inofficial" thid game: Albion.
But I guess the reason for being just "inofficial" is that they didnt actually have the license.

Originally Posted by Sir_Brennus
The reason behind this is the fact, that NOONE in the world knows for sure who owns the rights to the Amber-series in 2020.

I actually was in contact with an old acquaintance of mine who is managing director / shareholder of the Schmidtgruppe which is the last known owner of the Thalion copyrights. They actually produce and distribute slot machines and manage casinos. They probably came into the posession because a former manager (Werner Vens) bought the rights in 1995 and was named CEO until 2005 when Thalion was abolished. My contact was Arne Schmidt who told me about some promising leads to the rights whereabouts but the communication went silent after a planned meeting had to be canceled.

I still feel sorry about that, but I am very positive about one thing: The rights still belong to the Schmitgruppe which won't do anything about it (eg. not releasing the rights or code of Ambermoon to the public) as long as noone offers them something to make it worthwhile. Sad but true.

Thanks for the insights.. very interesting.
Meh, licenses / copyrights should fall back to the public, when they are not used for several years. Same with Ultima and others EA is sitting on.