Game: Lord Ambermaze
Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie, Strategy
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Potata Company | HeroCraft PC
Controller Support: Yes
Price: US $14.99 | UK £12.79 | EU € 14,79
Release Date: September 17 2025
Code provided, with many thanks to HeroCraft PC.
Last winter, I dug into Lord Ambermaze: Prologue, a demo slice of what would become Lord Ambermaze. Though a demo, I would also consider it what Japanese game companies call a gaiden, a self-contained side story that gives you a little more depth about a game’s world. Paced quickly enough to introduce you to a variety of weapons and tools to help you riddle your way through a healthy-sized puzzle dungeon, the prologue cast itself as a story the young protagonist tells his sister, replete with all the boasting and exaggerations necessary.
Come Lord Ambermaze proper, and the young protagonist’s story is much less cute — but in a satisfying, crunchy, mystery dungeon-style way. Your sister is captured, those tools and artefacts are more slowly doled out to match the full game’s bigger setting, and the world itself seems darker and more intense. The result builds on the prologue’s expectations: this is a world where cleverness will matter more than sword strength. Does it all come together? Well, I’m pretty impressed.
There’s A Lot Going On In This Dungeon
While most of your world will be contained by pixelated walls and your character’s references to a life beyond, Lord Ambermaze holds a lot more life and detail in the full game than the demo. Now there are others trapped inside the dungeon, and they’ve been here long enough to build new and sometimes cynical lives for themselves.
Upgrades, abilities, and permanent passives are all up for grabs if you can convince the locals to set aside their grumbling for a moment and trade for your precious coins and collectables. As the title suggests, amber itself is a prize, offered up to an eccentric artist trying to create the ultimate masterpiece for the evil overlord so she can get her butt off the island. Deep down, everyone knows they’re never leaving. That doesn’t stop some of them from trying anyway, and it certainly doesn’t stop your hero.
It creates a tone that’s a little more sombre than the prologue, but sensibly so. The prologue was a kid’s tale. The game itself is your protagonist realizing that heroic journeys are not actually that fun once the hordes of enemies show up and they’re laughing at your tin sword. But he adapts quickly, and, thanks to the slow pace of the first levels — and the turn-based nature of the game — so will you.
Lord Ambermaze’s ‘Mazing Dungeons
By calling Lord Ambermaze a mystery dungeon, certain expectations are set, and now we have to adjust them: mystery dungeon games, like the ones set in Pokémon’s world, are often procedurally generated (except for occasional story levels). You move through them turn by turn, pushing enemies and traps into motion. It creates a sense of tactical necessity, giving you time to think your way through each situation.
Lord Ambermaze features individually crafted rooms with puzzles that run from simple to stumping, with traps, monsters, and treasures all begging for your precious footsteps to turn their way. Those mystery dungeon turn-based elements transform Ambermaze into a puzzle game that relies on familiar RPG strategies as you carefully arrange your turns around resolving each room with as little damage to you and as much efficiency as possible. But, thanks to those RPG elements, there’s also plenty of wiggle room to your solutions.
Some rooms can be brute forced if necessary, or there are plenty of solutions possible once you’ve garnered a wide selection of tools. That keeps Lord Ambermaze’s puzzles from feeling overwhelming. Rewards help, too, from shiny coins and gems, to accessing mini-treasure rooms here and there with puzzles of their own if you want all the goods. Some backtracking will be necessary, but fortunately, the map is a good one, loaded with fast travel points between various sectors.
Looking Good, Lord Ambermaze
With a chunky but colorful pixel aesthetic, I’m reminded of two games in particular. The first is Tangledeep, another mystery dungeon-style game that does use procedural rooms, but notably has a similar art style and varying difficulty. The other game Ambermaze reminds me of, oddly, is Alundra. Now, that’s a loaded memory: Alundra was an incredibly hard action-RPG puzzle game from the PSone era. But its lush pixel design and thoughtful puzzling does come to mind when playing this game. Just, toned way down.
Similarly, Lord Ambermaze is tuned excellently for controllers. In fact, that’s the preferred method of play, and the game fits naturally into cozy patterns. Shoulder buttons activate potions or artefacts, icon buttons activate spells, and your stick or directional pad (recommended) will push you in the four directions you need. Other options are in clearly labeled sections, with the ability to check your full map once a room is cleared.
With easy backtracking and plenty of stuff to collect, it’s not hard to feel the drive to play, and better, it doesn’t feel like a chore to pause playing or go upgrade your gear. Everything is just really thoughtfully handled.
Conclusion
Lord Ambermaze is an excellent blend of mystery dungeon-style tactics and puzzle-solving, placed in a world that’s occasionally sombre but never grim or gritty. With a delightful visual style and a clean control scheme, this is an excellent game for fans of both classic dungeon crawlers and chess-like puzzle games.
With the prologue still available to try out, there’s little reason to not take Lord Ambermaze for a spin if you think this might be your speed. What it does, it does extremely well, making for a compact gaming experience.
Final Verdict: I Like It a Lot
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