Yal
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yaru.itch.io
Yal
@yaru.itch.io
300 followers 390 following 1.2K 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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yaru.itch.io
I noticed an interesting thing in the #deltarune soundtrack - the same motif with a repeated note shows up a bunch of times... but the later in the game, the fewer the number of repeats (5, 4, 3). Since a "countdown to the world expiring" is mentioned, I wonder if this is a way to represent that...
February 1, 2026 at 4:27 PM
yaru.itch.io
The Nioh 3 demo is completely BONKERS big. You get a continent the size of Limgrave! I was already sold on the game after playing the heck outta Nioh 2 but I got so addicted I couldn't stop until I finished the demo. It took basically the entire day lol (this was ONE SESSION)
#gaming
This screenshot proves I play some games an unhealthy amount.
February 1, 2026 at 2:52 AM
yaru.itch.io
Fun fact: if an enemy follows you when you shrink into a sub-map, it keeps its original size.

(It doesn't actually get stronger in battle, though. So far.)
#gamedev #indiedev #GameMaker
It's the giant placeholder enemy that makes all of the rules~
January 31, 2026 at 12:01 AM
yaru.itch.io
Did a lot of behind-the-scenes work with menus and chipping away at the inventory system. The "attack" menu displays currently equipped weapons from character's inventory, and there's now dual-wielding which makes you use both the weapons' basic attacks in succession. #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG
The skills that are grayed out here are classified as needing a hammer and a rapier respectively, so a sword+knife combo does not allow using them even with enough MP.
January 30, 2026 at 1:29 AM
yaru.itch.io
Put the real enemy graphics into the game and gave them stat blocks, suddenly the game got like 100 times more engaging!

...and also considerably more difficult now when you're fighting balanced parties with proper moves instead of the placeholder smileys with ONE attack.
#gamedev #indiedev #JRPG
The party is fighting some goblins. The goblins are winning.
January 27, 2026 at 12:19 AM
yaru.itch.io
Spent the evening cleaning up and coloring some portraits and enemy sprites. Ember's gonna be a potential party member! (Without having to edit the source code this time) #indiedev #furryart #art
(A lost deer wielding fire and a sword. Seems weak to water.)
January 25, 2026 at 11:43 PM
yaru.itch.io
Did a bunch of visual effect stuff, like making menus go from size 0 to full size as they slide into view. But most importantly, having big text splash on the screen during a battle transition if you hit the enemy first or vice versa so it FEELS meaningful. #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG
January 24, 2026 at 11:17 PM
yaru.itch.io
I kept feeling the target preview was too visually noisy (especially when targeting a large group), so I rewrote it to bundle up all name tags into one blob, only show 1 cursor (on the actual cursor location) and flash affected enemies red instead. Better or worse? #gamedev #indiedev #gamedesign
Old code: every enemy has a name label and a cursor, but they're darker for secondary targets. New code: all the labels are in one place right over the cursor, and secondary targets are flashing instead of having extra interface elements over them.
January 23, 2026 at 7:15 PM
yaru.itch.io
Added a system for summoning new entities mid-battle. The enemies can use it for reinforcements, players for summoning - basically the same as spawning an enemy, but it's set to fight on YOUR side. You'll need every friend you can get when there's this many foes! #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG
January 19, 2026 at 10:50 PM
yaru.itch.io
Got the planet system working! You now loop around the world seamlessly because there's a 3x3 grid of references to the same map, with only the center one being its ACTUAL location. (So you can't walk off the edge of the planet to enter the space layer, you need a rocket) #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG
January 18, 2026 at 8:31 PM
yaru.itch.io
One of the biggest obstacles for letting the player expand ANY tile into a full map is that there's weird edge cases. Like here, where you can clip through a wall because the movement check scales up speeds 256x due to trying to move over a seam with a 4 size levels difference. #gamedev #indiedev
January 17, 2026 at 11:53 PM
yaru.itch.io
One fun side effect of the recursion system is that I could trivially implement a looping "planet" overworld by placing the overworld 9 times in a "container" map one level higher, in a 3x3 grid, but only the center is its canon location. So each time you enter a neighbor copy, you're warped back.
January 17, 2026 at 9:11 PM
yaru.itch.io
I've noticed it generally looks better shrinking into a 3x3 metatile than a single 1x1 tile so surroundings aren't so EXTREMELY large, but the maths for translating coordinate systems when multi-tile neighbors were offset was beyond me. Well, I finally figured it out! #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG
January 16, 2026 at 10:50 PM
yaru.itch.io
Fun bug of the day: if an enemy hits you when going into/out of a dungeon, it uses the overworld scale to determine which enemies are close enough to join, causing EVERYONE IN THE DUNGEON to join the battle and then crash the script aligning their positions to the grid. #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG
The good thing when you get an error message is that you know WHAT to fix. The bad thing is that you don't necessarily know HOW...
January 14, 2026 at 10:44 PM
yaru.itch.io
Still a lot of work to go on the RPG engine. Did some work on the buff/debuff system, pretty happy with how well the system that dynamically combines multiple 10x8 px icons works. You'll usually be under a LOT of effects so they need to be super compact in the HUD. #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG
Two bubbles indicating that the user's attack and magic powers are raised for 3 turns.
January 14, 2026 at 5:57 PM
yaru.itch.io
I'm so happy with the placeholder design I made for EEE I'm just gonna turn this goober into a regular spirit/ghost type enemy that shows up in all of my games from now on
#gamedesign #sketch #indiedev

(Get it? It's named PlaceHolder because it's holding a location symbol)
A ghostly hand holding a frowning location symbol. This is a Place Holder.
January 11, 2026 at 8:36 AM
yaru.itch.io
Implemented enemy attacks (+ a little announcement animation to make it clear WHO does something) and now it's almost starting to feel like a real game! #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG

Still mostly doing abstract system stuff but it'll be faster making the actual game bits once they're all in place...
January 10, 2026 at 1:07 AM
yaru.itch.io
Spent some time digitizing a bunch of portrait art so I can finally start replacing the placeholders. Apparently it averaged to 30 min/piece to clean up and colorize so not looking forward to doing dozens-to-hundreds of these (incl. enemy graphics as well)... #gamedev #furryart #art
A drawing of a goat cleric with very long ears holding a giant ankh. A rabbit witch. Specifically, Imposter Frie.
January 7, 2026 at 10:28 PM
yaru.itch.io
I love how the logic for transferring the player between chunks is so complicated, I STILL need to add extra safeguards just to make basic movement work. Makes me miss the regular 2D grid that's an objective source of truth for your collision checks and pathfinding... #gamedev #indiedev
Code that detects if the player moved longer than expected and aborts the movement if so.
January 5, 2026 at 8:24 PM
yaru.itch.io
Was really unhappy with how the main battle menu looked, after some experimentation I stumbled into this PSX-ish look. The font is a bit hard to read so most of the tweaks was about going all in on visual flair instead. #gamedev #indiedev #JRPG
January 4, 2026 at 9:35 PM
yaru.itch.io
I feel dirty working on a hamburger-themed game given the current world events. Until the US is brought to justice I'll focus on my side project instead, the recursive RPG.
#gamedev #screenshotsaturday
A screenshot of a level inside a level inside a level. There are stone walls, trees, mushrooms and flowers.
January 3, 2026 at 9:33 PM
yaru.itch.io
Version 1.30 & the Lake Slushi story update Is finally released! This is a megaupdate expanding the game's size by almost 50%, including finishing all of the accessible-but-incomplete levels and adding tons of quality of life improvements! #gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale

yaru.itch.io/burgertale/d...
Version 1.30: Lady Goldfish's Trap ~ Lake Slushi story update
Version 1.30 is a giant content update that finishes all of the unfinished levels and adds the Lake Slushi substory, increasing the total amount of stuff to do in the game by almost 50% from the previ...
yaru.itch.io
December 31, 2025 at 2:52 AM
yaru.itch.io
After another full evening, the super testing crunch is finally done. All the new stuff has been beaten into working condition, apart from some enemy balancing! With a little luck I'll be able to complete and release the update before the end of the year. #gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale
Every release feels like reaching the goal at the last second. Well, not quite there yet...
December 30, 2025 at 11:10 PM
yaru.itch.io
7 more hours of supertesting done... movie world, Great Sea & first part of the pirate story arc is done. Great Sea had so bad flow I pretty much needed to pause and tweak platforming sections on a per-room basis. (Also placed like 800 decorative props to liven it up) #gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale
Turns out all these out-of-bounds palm trees and grass blobs makes the walls go from super boring to kind of acceptable. A room full of ice physics, and spikes that curse you with permanent ice physics if you touch them. On second thought maybe you don't need that treasure THAT badly. If you don't think the ice world is cool enough (or too cool), there's a volcano next door. Yes I'm really good at worldbuilding and area planning why do you ask. Salad Rosco, the third strongest pirate. I hope you like fighting him because you'll do it A LOT.
December 30, 2025 at 2:12 AM
yaru.itch.io
First 6 hours of supertesting done, new Burger Nexus secrets + retro world + mushroom world have had their issues ironed out. Citadel ALMOST complete apart from some flow/time issues with final escape & enemy bugs. After that, 7 worlds / 11 individual "levels" to go... #gamedev #indiedev #Burgertale
It's called "Battle WITH a Dark Hero" because you're not always battling AGAINST your rival... The village the most loyal to Lord Burgerface, hence the flags. Sadly I couldn't secure the license to The Gears Go Awry so you'll have to settle for the soundtrack I composed. We know less about the bottom of the oceans than we do outer space, but who said they needed to be mutually exclusive?
December 28, 2025 at 3:17 AM