Yellow Iron is a roguelike autobattler where broken appliances drop their parts, and the survivors bolt them on to become scrap mechs.

The scrapyard is being cleared. Over eight shifts, your crew of household appliances takes on bulldozers, excavators, a magnet crane and the boss, Big Yellow.

Your crew

Spend scrap between shifts to hire appliances. Each one has a job, so the crew you build decides which machines you can beat.

Salvage

Broken appliances are gone for good, and their parts go to the survivors. At 4 parts an appliance stands up on scrap legs. At 9 it becomes a mega-mech.

How a run works

• Pick a route. Tougher work orders pay more scrap.
• Hire and upgrade in the scrapyard shop.
• Set your formation. Drag appliances into place. Lines show where each one will fight.
• Choose a crew chief. Click an appliance to give it first pick of the salvage.
• Fight. The battle plays out on its own. Pause it or change the speed at any time.

Watch out for the Magnet Crane: it steals your salvage. You get two retries per run.

Controls

Mouse only. Space pauses, M mutes, T toggles animating on twos.

Desktop builds

On Windows, SmartScreen may warn about an unrecognized app: click More info, then Run anyway.

The Mac app isn't notarized. If macOS blocks it, right-click the app and choose Open, or allow it in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

On Linux, unzip and run YellowIron.x86_64.

Credits

Made by Michael Gill (gillworks) for the Eclipse Publishing Game Jam (theme: Salvage).
Sound effects: Universal Sound FX, Essential Sounds Bundle and UI SFX Mega Pack (Skril Studio), licensed from the Unity Asset Store.
Fonts: Bungee by David Jonathan Ross, Barlow Condensed by Jeremy Tribby, Bangers by Vernon Adams (SIL Open Font License 1.1).
Built with Unity 6 and Blender.

AI disclosure

Made with AI assistance (Claude) under human direction. AI helped write code, including Blender scripts that model the 3D art and the shaders, and some UI text, with human edits. The sound effects are licensed library assets.