Gabriel | mystal
@mystal.cafe
[they/them] Queer 🇵🇷 nb game dev, programmer & designer. Rock climber. Rustacean. Mask wearer 😷
Former Combat Designer/Gameplay Programmer @ Brass Lion Entertainment
Makes games for money in Unreal and for soul in Bevy, Godot, and other cozy engines
Former Combat Designer/Gameplay Programmer @ Brass Lion Entertainment
Makes games for money in Unreal and for soul in Bevy, Godot, and other cozy engines
Pinned
Gabriel | mystal
@mystal.cafe
· Jun 6
Battle the forces of a corrupting entity called the Deceiver as you harness the mythical abilities of the Wu-Tang Clan!
Check out the trailer below, and wishlist Wu-Tang: Rise of the Deceiver on the Steam & Epic Game Store!
Steam – bit.ly/ROTDSTEAM
Epic Store - bit.ly/ROTDEPIC
Check out the trailer below, and wishlist Wu-Tang: Rise of the Deceiver on the Steam & Epic Game Store!
Steam – bit.ly/ROTDSTEAM
Epic Store - bit.ly/ROTDEPIC
Holy shit, the game I worked on for three years is finally announced! I did a lot of tech and combat design work on this game and I'm so proud of it.
That big hammer weapon at the end of the trailer was my baby, I designed and implemented most of it with help from amazing artists and programmers :3
That big hammer weapon at the end of the trailer was my baby, I designed and implemented most of it with help from amazing artists and programmers :3
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
I am looking into this, I've reached out to Steam directly, and I'm actively pitching stories on this subject of the platform's shaky moderation. If any other devs have experienced something similar with reviews and moderation, do reach out.
the Steam team responded to my support request and said they will not remove the review calling me a liar and ridiculing my sexual assault because of censorship concerns.
steamcommunity.com/profiles/765...
if Steam refuses to enforce their community guidelines and allows harassment, what can i do?
steamcommunity.com/profiles/765...
if Steam refuses to enforce their community guidelines and allows harassment, what can i do?
January 10, 2026 at 11:29 AM
I am looking into this, I've reached out to Steam directly, and I'm actively pitching stories on this subject of the platform's shaky moderation. If any other devs have experienced something similar with reviews and moderation, do reach out.
Now this is the kind of games media I want 1000% more of!
Have you ever noticed that the food graphics in Super Smash Bros. and Kirby Air Riders is flat “billboarded” stock images of food? This artistic decision from director Masahiro Sakurai has persisted through 8 games over nearly 25 years.
#gaming #nintendo #smashbros
sethmlarson.dev/food-jpegs-i...
#gaming #nintendo #smashbros
sethmlarson.dev/food-jpegs-i...
“Food JPEGs” in Super Smash Bros & Kirby Air Riders
Have you ever noticed that the food graphics in Super Smash Bros.
and Kirby Air Riders is flat “billboarded” stock images of food?
This artistic decision from director Masahiro Sakurai has persi...
sethmlarson.dev
January 11, 2026 at 6:50 PM
Now this is the kind of games media I want 1000% more of!
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
oldhead advice from an oldhead.
every couple years, newcomers to the movement think "THIS is finally it, the moment when the dam breaks and the whole system is overthrown"
and when it doesn't happen they lose patience and get disillusioned and drop out of movement work
gotta build for long term
every couple years, newcomers to the movement think "THIS is finally it, the moment when the dam breaks and the whole system is overthrown"
and when it doesn't happen they lose patience and get disillusioned and drop out of movement work
gotta build for long term
January 8, 2026 at 7:32 AM
oldhead advice from an oldhead.
every couple years, newcomers to the movement think "THIS is finally it, the moment when the dam breaks and the whole system is overthrown"
and when it doesn't happen they lose patience and get disillusioned and drop out of movement work
gotta build for long term
every couple years, newcomers to the movement think "THIS is finally it, the moment when the dam breaks and the whole system is overthrown"
and when it doesn't happen they lose patience and get disillusioned and drop out of movement work
gotta build for long term
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
imagine watching this and not thinking that this is the whole goddamn reason to even *have* America
Best TikTok thing going is the two dudes trying food from every country without leaving NYC. If you haven’t seen them yet, it’s incredible. My favorite so far is last week’s. Legit got me emotional.
January 9, 2026 at 2:06 AM
imagine watching this and not thinking that this is the whole goddamn reason to even *have* America
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
This should honestly be a legal requirement for discontinued products.
Bose is open-sourcing its old smart speakers instead of bricking them
Bose is open-sourcing its old smart speakers instead of bricking them
Bose speakers un-bricked
buff.ly
January 8, 2026 at 3:20 PM
This should honestly be a legal requirement for discontinued products.
Very nice! I'm currently down a similar rabbit hole trying to make a task management/kanban app. I considered Godot, but am currently looking into Flutter. Might still go back to Godot tho...
January 8, 2026 at 1:00 AM
Very nice! I'm currently down a similar rabbit hole trying to make a task management/kanban app. I considered Godot, but am currently looking into Flutter. Might still go back to Godot tho...
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
My favorite thing as a kid to do in OOT was hanging out at Lon Lon Ranch with Epona and the cows
Kinda wish I was there now 🥹
Kinda wish I was there now 🥹
January 6, 2026 at 3:18 PM
My favorite thing as a kid to do in OOT was hanging out at Lon Lon Ranch with Epona and the cows
Kinda wish I was there now 🥹
Kinda wish I was there now 🥹
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
The extent to which Games Done Quick has helped to steer the larger speedrunning community - one of the most hardcore video game enthusiast subcultures there is - into becoming something so welcoming, inclusive and supportive astonishes me
January 4, 2026 at 8:35 PM
The extent to which Games Done Quick has helped to steer the larger speedrunning community - one of the most hardcore video game enthusiast subcultures there is - into becoming something so welcoming, inclusive and supportive astonishes me
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
Love this from Guillermo del Toro
January 5, 2026 at 2:16 AM
Love this from Guillermo del Toro
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
Rough vibes on this website today, likely because people feel Hopeless and Helpless Because Can't Stop It and No One Who Is Supposed To Is Trying To So Now We're Fighting Each Other™. I recommend activities such as book, or potentially instrument if you like instrument, or even do talk on phone.
January 5, 2026 at 12:03 AM
Rough vibes on this website today, likely because people feel Hopeless and Helpless Because Can't Stop It and No One Who Is Supposed To Is Trying To So Now We're Fighting Each Other™. I recommend activities such as book, or potentially instrument if you like instrument, or even do talk on phone.
Anyway, ask this to say that at the time Gradle and Android Studio were a big improvement over Maven and nothing (or Eclipse if you were brave).
But these days, I'm spoiled by the DX of the Rust ecosystem and I just _cannot_ deal with it anymore. At least not for free.
But these days, I'm spoiled by the DX of the Rust ecosystem and I just _cannot_ deal with it anymore. At least not for free.
January 4, 2026 at 2:27 AM
Anyway, ask this to say that at the time Gradle and Android Studio were a big improvement over Maven and nothing (or Eclipse if you were brave).
But these days, I'm spoiled by the DX of the Rust ecosystem and I just _cannot_ deal with it anymore. At least not for free.
But these days, I'm spoiled by the DX of the Rust ecosystem and I just _cannot_ deal with it anymore. At least not for free.
I let that job to work at Riot shortly after I got it all working well.
I learned a year later from an old coworker that the entire thing stopped working within a year of me leaving. They never got another engineer to support the Android port. Womp. Huge bummer, but wasn't my problem anymore, lol
I learned a year later from an old coworker that the entire thing stopped working within a year of me leaving. They never got another engineer to support the Android port. Womp. Huge bummer, but wasn't my problem anymore, lol
January 4, 2026 at 2:25 AM
I let that job to work at Riot shortly after I got it all working well.
I learned a year later from an old coworker that the entire thing stopped working within a year of me leaving. They never got another engineer to support the Android port. Womp. Huge bummer, but wasn't my problem anymore, lol
I learned a year later from an old coworker that the entire thing stopped working within a year of me leaving. They never got another engineer to support the Android port. Womp. Huge bummer, but wasn't my problem anymore, lol
So over the following year I slowly migrated our build tools and fixed up CMake and wrote a bunch of docs on how the new hotness worked. And it did work, people not me could actually do Android dev and debug issues! I was so incredibly proud.
January 4, 2026 at 2:23 AM
So over the following year I slowly migrated our build tools and fixed up CMake and wrote a bunch of docs on how the new hotness worked. And it did work, people not me could actually do Android dev and debug issues! I was so incredibly proud.
Google promised a better world with their new hotness: Android Studio!
They said that you could now build your Android C++ game in Android Studio with Gradle and debug it on a device in the IDE!
They said that you could now build your Android C++ game in Android Studio with Gradle and debug it on a device in the IDE!
January 4, 2026 at 2:21 AM
Google promised a better world with their new hotness: Android Studio!
They said that you could now build your Android C++ game in Android Studio with Gradle and debug it on a device in the IDE!
They said that you could now build your Android C++ game in Android Studio with Gradle and debug it on a device in the IDE!
There was another big problem with this. See, with the original set up, I was the only person that could debug the Android build on a device. It was a pain in the ass. You had to jump through flaming hoops and send a prayer to the gdb gods. (Still, I caught a few heisenbugs this way!)
January 4, 2026 at 2:19 AM
There was another big problem with this. See, with the original set up, I was the only person that could debug the Android build on a device. It was a pain in the ass. You had to jump through flaming hoops and send a prayer to the gdb gods. (Still, I caught a few heisenbugs this way!)
When I got there, they had a shell script that would build the custom engine's C++ code by calling CMake and then do a bunch of fiddly steps to pull it into an Android project that used Maven and spit it an APK.
The script worked, but it was held together with duct tape and hope
The script worked, but it was held together with duct tape and hope
January 4, 2026 at 2:15 AM
When I got there, they had a shell script that would build the custom engine's C++ code by calling CMake and then do a bunch of fiddly steps to pull it into an Android project that used Maven and spit it an APK.
The script worked, but it was held together with duct tape and hope
The script worked, but it was held together with duct tape and hope
When I worked at Super Evil Megacorp in 2015, I had just come from working at Google so I got put on the Android port of Vainglory. They needed someone to own it: improve device support, improve the build tools, fix bugs, integrate third party SDKs, etc
January 4, 2026 at 2:13 AM
When I worked at Super Evil Megacorp in 2015, I had just come from working at Google so I got put on the Android port of Vainglory. They needed someone to own it: improve device support, improve the build tools, fix bugs, integrate third party SDKs, etc
I had looked into learning Jetpack Compose for Android, but was almost instantly turned off by the amount of set up and waiting for downloads and SDKs and _Gradle_. I thought I looked Gradle, but I was very wrong. My opinions are a decade out of date!
Story time!
Story time!
January 4, 2026 at 2:11 AM
I had looked into learning Jetpack Compose for Android, but was almost instantly turned off by the amount of set up and waiting for downloads and SDKs and _Gradle_. I thought I looked Gradle, but I was very wrong. My opinions are a decade out of date!
Story time!
Story time!
In what's turning into an evaluation of modern, cross-platform UI solutions (that have some Rust integration), I've been digging into Flutter today. Gotta say, I'm liking it quite a bit so far!
Also! Supposedly flutter_rust_bridge is good these days, so I'm looking forward to trying it out :3
Also! Supposedly flutter_rust_bridge is good these days, so I'm looking forward to trying it out :3
January 4, 2026 at 2:09 AM
In what's turning into an evaluation of modern, cross-platform UI solutions (that have some Rust integration), I've been digging into Flutter today. Gotta say, I'm liking it quite a bit so far!
Also! Supposedly flutter_rust_bridge is good these days, so I'm looking forward to trying it out :3
Also! Supposedly flutter_rust_bridge is good these days, so I'm looking forward to trying it out :3
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
If you are a resident of California, the state now has a portal where you can demand deletion of your personal data from 500+ registered data brokers with a single request form, for free.
consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov
consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov
consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov
January 2, 2026 at 2:26 AM
If you are a resident of California, the state now has a portal where you can demand deletion of your personal data from 500+ registered data brokers with a single request form, for free.
consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov
consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov
Reposted by Gabriel | mystal
Just fyi this is one of the many reasons Californians don’t like Newsom. A 5% tax on our 200 billionaires would prevent a healthcare collapse from the ACA subsidies going away and he’s opposed to it.
January 1, 2026 at 5:42 PM
Just fyi this is one of the many reasons Californians don’t like Newsom. A 5% tax on our 200 billionaires would prevent a healthcare collapse from the ACA subsidies going away and he’s opposed to it.