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Yal

@yaru.itch.io

270 followers 310 following 840 posts

Software engineer | Game Maker user for >20 years | Maker of Burgertale, Hotline Sanzu, and like 50 other games | Computers peaked in the 8-bit days | Put "perfect is the enemy of good" on my tombstone

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Yal @yaru.itch.io · 29d

I missed the #Undertale anniversary with one day, but better late than never! My free UT/DR fangame framework (for #GameMaker) is complete, if you've struggled to make Kris/Frisk walk around and never got to the fun part where you add your OCs, check it out! #indiedev

yaru.itch.io/epsilon-engr...

Epsilon Engraving Engine by Yal

The unofficial parallel story to the parallel story

yaru.itch.io

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 14h

This essentially just being "replace one actress in select scenes" rather than "generate the whole thing from scratch" comes SO CLOSE to a real use case... personalized product placement. They could do the Cerveza Cristal Star Wars ads, but on-demand with a product perfectly geared for each viewer.

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 4d

Stumbled over a cool effect - these crystal deposits don't ACTUALLY glow, but the darkness in this area is set up to not affect the blue color channel so they stay the same color as you fade everything else to max darkness, and thus APPEAR to be glowing. #indiedev #pixelart #Burgertale

(Of course, the effect wouldn't be so pronounced if brown had essentially only red and green color channels in it, which is why the ground fades out as expected.)

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 4d

Finally getting around to making that mushroom themed level in Nugget Mines that's been blocked off for AGES! Even the map is gonna get in on the pink amanita iconography. #gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale

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Yal @yaru.itch.io · 8d

Generating e-mails with AI and summarizing e-mails with AI both very much feel like "solutions looking for a problem" (the amount of text usually isn't what makes an e-mail bad at conveying information) and them now being in an arms race with each other feels like the stupidest possible outcome.

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 9d

Raise up your odachi~

(I've started to feel like I gotta get more practice drawing Ember in other outfits instead of just coasting by on her easily drawn wizard robe, and when doodling this one I kinda just ended up with samurai armor by accident... there's no lore reason)
#OC #sketch #drawing

(This might be the first time I drew a sword disproportionately SMALL, since odachi could be as long as the wielder. I kinda ran out of paper though...)

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 10d

Inktober day 5: deer

I've drawn Ember way too much lately but I guess I still need to practice facial expressions, especially those cartoony ones that don't respect the laws of physics (they're the coolest)
#inktober2025 #OC #art

(technically not ink, I'm not comfortable drawing in a medium without an undo button and with pencils you at least have erasers for that role)

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Yal @yaru.itch.io · 11d

Made a bunch of new weapons for the pirate world, like this blunderbuss which packs quite a punch!
#gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale

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Yal @yaru.itch.io · 12d

Most of the levelly bits for The Great Sea are in place so I finally started chipping away at the merchant town hub I decided to have (WHY did I want SEVERAL new shops?!)

Some new monster species and a lot of unhinged dialogue I wrote while half asleep... #gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale

(He's the giant rat that makes all of the rules)

This line made more sense before I wrote it down.

(These guys are supposed to be living water taps, if you couldn't tell)

This is a reference to the unfortunate original title of the book U N Owen Was Her is based on, but it kinda gets funnier without that context.

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Yal @yaru.itch.io · 12d

WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING

(ah well, back in the day we didn't actually NEED achievements and terrible people convincing us we need superfluous things is the trend of society in 2025 so I shouldn't be surprised...)

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 13d

This feels like something Game Freak oughta actually try sometime, considering all the development struggles with creating new high definition models + performance issues in large areas for the last few games...

(not to mention the merch potential)

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 13d

Really interesting... reminds me of how ancient japanese RPG Sorcerian was built to be moddable, where you'd buy completely separate floppy disks with new campaigns (since the PC-98 had two floppy drives the core game systems could be on one disk and the environment/monster data on the other)

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Yal @yaru.itch.io · 13d

Is it 400 hours long, took 21 years to develop, and has a difficulty surpassing the Genius of Sappheiros endgame? Because otherwise I'd say it's a case of false advertising...

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 14d

I added a failsafe joke message if you somehow pick up an item with an invalid ID.

...and then of course I IMMEDIATELY messed up some item logic and got a taste of it.
#gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale

The good news is, at least it's not eating into your carrying capacity.

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Yal @yaru.itch.io · 14d

Good news! You can make that fight considerably easier if you...

...beat an even harder boss in chapter 3.

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 16d

Enemy/item placements aren't done yet but after a couple days of placing platforms the core leveldesign is finally done for the entire Great Sea level! (Yes all of this is ONE LEVEL)
#gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale

Not pictured: the actual Great Sea you use to travel between the island interiors

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Yal @yaru.itch.io · 17d

Relatedly, I can't get over how a lot of terrain in that Star Wars soulslike game looks like it's from Super Mario 3D Land because of the platforming mechanics requiring platforms. You got all these perfectly rectangular cubes suspended in midair covered in hyperrealistic vegetation & dirt textures.

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 17d

"Apfel" implies it's german (in swedish it would be "äpple"). But close enough, there's an old joke that german is just "angry swedish".

(...i was expecting a Bad Apple cover because the name literally means "broken apple 2", lol)

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 19d

I'm late to the "OCs cosplaying as #Silksong characters" trend but uh, better late than never...? #furry #art

(I still can't decide what Matte's canonical height is but things get funnier when she's very short and compensates by being hyperactive)

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 21d

(oh yeah and the giant question mark is a control object that handles the new "second layer" stuff, whenever I have special control objects I always make them super huge in the room editor so it's impossible to miss them)

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 21d

The most interesting takeaway here was that splitting the overworld into individual rooms paradoxically made things feel LESS restrictive. It guides your exploration in a way that makes the environment feel more meaningful (since you only see the important bits)

Not my original guess... #gamedesign

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 21d

After some testing it turned out that having a big open ocean simply does not work gamefeel-wise in 2D, so after placing all the "actual area" doors I added corridors between them + placed camera lock zones instead of having it all be one big room on the map. #gamedesign #indiedev #Burgertale

Top is the "actual level" bit and the bottom is the interconnected overworld. They're parts of the same Game Maker room for convenience.

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Yal @yaru.itch.io · 21d

UT releasing when everyone was still thinking Bioshock was the height of "your choices matter" probably helped as well, it directly comments on how artificial "regular" choices are (e.g. if you kill regular enemies but spare Toriel, Flowey calls you out for thinking some lives are worth less)

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 21d

Just to list a couple things UT does:
- Consistently using a particular artstyle so it can make the final boss FEEL like a lovecraftian elder god by being a different artstyle
- making characters aware of you reloading saves to change the timeline
- trash mobs' lives matter, not just bosses'

Yal @yaru.itch.io · 21d

But that said, I agree with you that just adding guns to a farming game WON'T make the same splash Undertale did. Adding guns, or doing something edgy like Graveyard Keeper having you harvest organs instead of crops, is still just a surface level subversion - the mechanics stay the same.

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Yal @yaru.itch.io · 21d

After playing Palworld for like 400 hours I've gotten the vibe guns were mostly there to grab attention and the core game has a lot more to it than just being 1990s edgy (even though it mostly boils down to optimizing resource processing so you can afford bringing the highest combat stats to bosses)