iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Rather than trying to fight a Certain Other Game head-on (go play it! it's awesome!) I'm focusing on the things that make #NovaSquadron different. Like a grumpy foxboy who's 6'1"/185cm with the ears. And he'd REALLY like you to include the ears. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The fade to black after the cutscene at the start of each #NovaSquadron mission is kind of a buzzkill. So I'm getting rid of it.* #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday *(heavily WIP and the Editor gave me frame stutters at the worst possible times)

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I'm finally replacing the crappy placeholder cutscene system I rushed in for #NovaSquadron 0.1.0 5 years ago. I take my job very seriously. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Cross-posting a trend from over on the Other Website: my software and my art! #gamedev #indiedev #pixelartㅤㅤ

The template everyone in the quote chain was using, of a sketched figure gesturing at Blender and saying "I'm using Blender."

Except it actually says "I'm using many things", because we've got:
- Unity for the game itself
- Blender for all 3D modelling and animation
- Clip Studio for UI work
- Aseprite for the character pixel art
- Material Maker for building procedural textures

A staged screenshot I took of a couple of Callisto Lunar Enterprise (CLE) fighter jets dogfighting with the player's Phoenix Mark II in a vast sea of clouds, the sun directly in front of the camera.
Aside from the lack of ground, your other hint that this ain't taking place on Earth is the moon Callisto peeking in from behind the clouds.

Another staged screenshot, this time in the middle of the night. The camera's focused on the moon Ganymede, wreathed in a green-purple aurora.

Three of NS's pixel-art portraits -
Meline, Nova 4 "Snapshot", an android with short pink hair and a blue LED screen for a face. She's wearing her flight suit off one shoulder (revealing part of her white polymer exoskeleton) and grinning like a dumbass. This is because she's a dumbass.

Aina, AWACS "Storm Chaser", a woman in a big fluffy bomber jacket with her long green hair tied into a ponytail. Her pointy ears are covered in piercings, and she's wearing winged eyeliner and purple lipstick that matches her eyes.

Commander Özdemir, "Öz" to...basically everyone, a middle-aged man standing rather stiffly in a pressed white military uniform. One of his eyes is a fairly old-fashioned cybernetic replacement; the other one looks moderately fed-up. His handlebar moustache is magnificent.

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Introducing Meline, another of your wingmen in #NovaSquadron! She's from the free city of Olympus Mons and obsessed with its fashion culture, so do NOT get her talking about clothes or she'll never stop. Or do. I mean, there's dialogue options for a reason. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Portraits in #NovaSquadron 's briefings, debriefings and dessert chats are now animated! (ssshhh don't look at Storm Chaser overlapping the UI, nothing to see here) #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Another one crossed off the bucket list: I wrote a pixel art animation system from scratch and now Storm Chaser can do this! ... #NovaSquadron is still a game where you fly a plane and shoot lasers on Jupiter I swear #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

my favourite part of the last #NovaSquadron Screenshot Saturday was this surprisingly clean jump down the mag-railway to get from one furball to another #gamedev #indiedev

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

You might be wondering why it's taking us so long to put 0.5.0 together... Well, I scaled the patch preview text down to 25% size, and I STILL had to cut a bunch out to fit it all on one screen. #NovaSquadron receives its biggest update EVER this December! #gamedev #indiedev

0.5.0 - The Ice Cream Update. Coming 12/2026.
- Work with your allies to fill the Air Superiority Gauge
- Higher unit density (more stuff to shoot! More missiles in the distance!)
- Each wingman's score is tracked separately - optimize their loadouts
- Shorter, leaner runs - Sceptre Squadron show up on mission 3, not 4
- Select a region once every 3 missions, instead of every mission
- Each region now has unique visuals, bonuses and penalties
- Missions have different difficulty ratings and rewards
- Both the Valkyrie and Phoenix are more manoeuvrable by default
- Enter low orbit to fly with reduced drag
- Re-enter the atmosphere to go very, very, very fast (and be on fire)
- More interesting tutorial opening cutscene
- Smoother, slicker tutorial flow
- Complete render pipeline replacement
- Rebuilt cloud, sky and aurora system
- Leave the atmosphere! Look at Jupiter's moons!
- Bullet, laser and missile upgrades
- New explosion system
- Fully overhauled cutscenes
- Send messages to your fellow pilots and officers
- Buy them ice cream (?????)
- Earn Favors you can equip during runs for an extra boost
- Two playable characters: Fenrir and Perigee
- Different dialogue and romance(?!) options for both characters
- yes we have straight, gay and bi options
- Replaced Starting Parts with Favors
- No Part limit - hold as many as you can find in each run!
- Prototype Upgrades are now visible from the start (no pick-1-of-3)
- Upgrade Menu hexes are now grouped by type
- Full font replacement
- Buttons go all fizzy when you hover over them
- Reworked main menu, New Run menu, and Mission Select menu
- New Debriefing Screen with score and earning breakdowns
- Chat log in the Pause Menu for when you miss dialogue!
- Ultrawide screen support
- New BGM for Dogfight and Naval Escort (now with 2 guitar solos)
- Dynamic BGM for the new tutorial
- Smooth synthwave for while you're eating ice cream

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

The army-wide score bar in #NovaSquadron 's Dogfight/Naval Battle that fills itself up even if the player doesn't do anything? Gone. Introducing my Evil Plans: the Air Superiority bar. Which lets me turn missions into the biggest, dumbest furballs ever. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Laying the groundwork for my Evil Plans with some minor #NovaSquadron changes: - each plane's score is now tracked separately (you'll still get paid for all of them!) - infrastructure is now highlighted as targets - mission completion progress bar?! #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Someone told me games need "unique selling points" or something, so screw it Fighter jet game where you send your squadron and supporting officers ice cream #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday #NovaSquadron

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

just more UI work, nothing to see here, you definitely cannot flirt with your AWACS #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday #NovaSquadron

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I needed a break from UI stuff, so I let my hair down and, uh, completely remade #NovaSquadron 's missile VFX. The usual ~1 minute video wouldn't do this insanity justice, so here's 3 minutes of the INDF and CLE absolutely wrecking each other's navies. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Okay, #NovaSquadron narrative tooling overhaul done. @crowwmonarch.bsky.social has vastly more power now, which I'm sure she will do nothing silly with at all. I'm taking a break from UI work for a sec, so expect some weird new VFX next weekend! #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

I'm still working on the #NovaSquadron narrative tooling overhaul, but that's not all I'm cooking. For your listening pleasure: the WIP new background music for Dogfight missions! For your viewing pleasure: me making extremely bad evasive decisions! #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

@crowwmonarch.bsky.social asked for a tiny extra feature in #NovaSquadron 's narrative system, so, naturally, I am 70 files into refactoring the entire system, and have to scratch-build a new UI because Unity doesn't support the new format. Looks nice though! #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Storm Chaser's brief appearance on the victory screen seems to be doing numbers, so maybe it's time to bring back her ear wiggling #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Introducing #NovaSquadron 's new victory screen, where you can see: - how you did in the mission - where all your Credits came from - how confused you made AWACS Storm Chaser today #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

if anyone ever tells you I know what I'm doing, don't believe them, they're clearly lying

Various responses to the gay plane:
"Are we going to get gay AGMs? GayGMS?"
to which I said "Okay, I checked with the Eventide's chief of engineering, she says all the AGMs are already gay"

"not only are the pilots queer, the planes are too...hell yeah!"
to which I said "the pilots are so queer I can't even make coming-out posts for them and I've had to start using inanimate objects. suffering from success."

"just expecting some su-27 inspired craft that is actually trans and lesbian and i'm in"
to which I said "we already had a Su-27 hybrid planned, taking notes"

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Happy Pride Month! Most of #NovaSquadron 's roster is already openly gay/bi/ace/lesbian, but we do have something for you: The Valkyrie strike fighter has come out as gay. ...We have a team of mechanics working round the clock to try and figure out what that actually means. #gamedev #indiedev

The Valkyrie, one of the two playable aircraft in Nova Squadron, painted in bright rainbow colours. The shark-mouth decal painted around the nosecone minigun seems pretty happy about the whole thing.

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

No, this isn't a late April Fools' joke, we're actually adding "the ground" to #NovaSquadron! Introducing the secret fifth region, the Crystal Highlands, where freezing temperatures condense rare minerals in the clouds into huge pillars. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

So the CLE has nailed a bunch of gaudy yellow SAM facilities to the Pillars, and I've told them to shoot at anything that moves. I forgot to tell them to stop. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday #NovaSquadron

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Okay, but...what do we actually need a writer and an artist for? A lot. 0.5.0 fully restructures the roguelite part of NS with regions, an upgrade overhaul, less filler between boss fights, more meaningful choices, oh, and a whole-ass visual novel between missions. 5/7

A render of one of the new Pillars of Origin - a big rusty flying building - floating through some (much fluffier than in 0.4.0) clouds.

A screenshot of the new Region Selection map, with the Regio Obscurus selected. A side panel explains that in this region, "one random equipped Part levels up after each mission, but intense auroras cause radar malfunctions at long range."

The four pixel art character portraits I've made so far - a woman with long orange hair in a flight suit; a grey-haired man with a robotic left eye and a truly magnificent handlebar moustache, wearing a pressed white officer's uniform; a green-haired lady in a leather bomber jacket with silver cross earrings and thick black eyeliner; and a man with his blue hair tied up in a scruffy ponytail, wearing a flight suit and a brass necklace.

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

This week is the sixth anniversary of #NovaSquadron starting development (never say something will take "maybe a year"!), and it's crazy to look back and see how much the game's visuals have improved over the years. I will not be stopping. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

The prototype Pillars seemed to work, so I've started experimentally texturing them. Yes, environment texturing. In #NovaSquadron. I've never done this before in my life... ...but what if I did #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Welcome to (the early prototype sketch of) the Pillars of Origin, a region named after, well, the gigantic pillars everywhere. These were the first colonies floated into Jupiter's atmosphere back in the 22nd century, and they're still used today! #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

It helped raise charity funds for the Panavia Tornado Preservation Group! sonicaim.uk/product/crash/

The crash panel from a Panavia Tornado, complete with black-and-yellow warning stripes, markings, and labels for the different components.

Oh, and a slider, two knobs and a foot switch. Because it's the faceplate of a guitar pedal.

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

The trailer for @yoyoyollie.bsky.social's DELIVERY MUST COMPLETE is finally out, and it came with an official release of Jose Pavli's fantastic main theme. So, naturally, I had to do something with it. Presenting DLMC's main leitmotif, butchered in the style of NS's menu music. #gamemusic #vgm

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Alright, back to our scheduled tour of #NovaSquadron 's Jupiter! Welcome to the Regio Obscurus, an area around the north pole permanently shrouded in a blue aurora. It'd be beautiful if only it didn't mess with your plane's sensors. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Okay, I did the video game trend. Ask me anything. I'd say about 11 of these games have had a direct influence on Nova Squadron, so these are the culprits behind my incomprehensible game dev decisions.

The grids.fun "About Me: Video Games" grid that's been going around.
Favorite Game: Valkyria Chronicles
Best Story: Tales of Symphonia
Favorite Art Style: Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
Biggest Personal Impact: Final Fantasy XII
Best Combat: The Battle for Wesnoth
Overhated: Final Fantasy XIII
Underrated: Resonance of Fate
Overrated: Valkyria Chronicles 4
Needs a Remake: Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere
Criminally Overlooked: Kid Icarus: Uprising
Favorite Protagonist: Disgaea 4
Favorite Antagonist: Halo 2
Best Soundtrack: Final Fantasy VII Remake
Best Multiplayer: Helldivers 1
Not Usually My Thing, But...: Just Cause 3
Turn My Brain Off: Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes
Best With Friends: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Best Retro Game: Metal Slug
Nostalgic Childhood Game: Sonic Adventure 2
Game Everyone Should Play: Ace Combat 04: Distant Thunder

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

And finally, Callisto. The one the CLE's headquarters are in. The entire Jovian front in Nova Squadron is just to try and set up a forward base remotely near it, because there sure ain't any way to land on the moon itself when it's covered in so many turrets. #gamedev #indiedev

A procedural texture that looks kind of like Jupiter's furthest Galilean moon, Callisto - a black and brown mottled surface dotted with white impact craters.

The node graph that procedurally generated said texture.

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Onward and outward to the third closest Galilean moon, Ganymede! This is Jupiter's largest moon by far, and it's where Callisto Lunar Enterprise made their trillions in the late 2100's. Most of its population lives in (and expands) the subterranean honeycomb of ore mines. #gamedev #indiedev

A procedural texture that looks kind of like Jupiter's third closest Galilean moon, Ganymede - a desolate gray surface, similar to our own moon's, dotted with brighter white impact craters.

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Moon 2: Electric Boogaloo - now for Europa, the second closest Galilean moon. At the time Nova Squadron takes place, there's a demilitarised zone around the Lunar Ocean Research Station...who have just (April 2283) found alien life 100 miles beneath the ice. #gamedev #indiedev

A procedural texture that looks kind of like Jupiter's second closest Galilean moon, Europa - a flat icy surface, a rusty red colour in the centre and snowy white at the poles.

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

So I know I just said I was going to show off the next region this Saturday, but I got caught up in the Artemis II mission hype, downloaded Material Maker, and now I'm procedurally texturing one Galilean moon a day instead. Here's Io, the closest to Jupiter. #gamedev #indiedev

A procedural texture that looks kind of like Jupiter's nearest Galilean moon, Io - a yellowy/orange surface dotted with black volcanic splotches.

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Another quick update on #NovaSquadron 's clouds: They look like this now. It's all finally coming together. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

I've always looked at art trades and thought "damn, those are cool, artists rock". I'm not really an artist, but I have had a lot of practice at one thing: character portraits for NS. Happy birthday to the lead dev of Aggressors: FAC, my close friend/rival/comrade, @sanikkat.bsky.social!

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

After a lot of consideration from the team, we've decided that #NovaSquadron is going to pivot away from being a roguelite, and instead have an action-packed, bespoke campaign. We're very excited to reveal the mission lineup for Part 1 of the campaign! #gamedev #indiedev

9 mission buttons superimposed over a map of Jupiter:

Mission 1 - Bomber Interception, Obviously
Mission 2 - Operation Scalding Water
Mission 3 - Battle Against a Formidable Duck
Mission 4 - Breaking the Siegebreakers
Mission 5 - Bringer of Missiles, Ultimate
Mission 6 - The Goddamn Duck's Back Again
Mission 7 - Operation Sapphire Wrath
Mission 8 - The One Where You Play As A Tank
Mission 9 - Why Won't This Stupid Duck Leave Me Alone

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Happy Trans Day of Visibility! It's...not been an easy year, for a lot of trans and enby folks out there. But it's also worth looking ahead to the future, to change, to making the world a better place, little by little. We can do this.

A screenshot of Nova Squadron (the game I'm working on) with the sky and cloud colours tweaked in-engine to the lovely pink and blue pastel hues of the trans flag. A plane painted in non-binary flag colours is flying towards the sunrise.

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Quick update on #NovaSquadron 's cloud rendering: ...sometimes things have to look worse before they start looking better. "Make a plane game set on Jupiter", I told myself 5 years ago. "You won't have to worry about terrain then!" "It'll be so easyyy!" #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

I've been hard at work on #NovaSquadron 's clouds again! Fortunately, dual-filtered volumetric froxel-based Henyey-Greenstein phased fBM cloud rendering is as simple as it sounds, and totally doesn't do anything weird if you mess up slightly. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

A Phoenix fighter plane surrounded by clouds.
Said clouds have decided to be jet-black where the sunlight's reaching them, with radioactive green shadows.

Now the clouds have decided to have weird tartan grid patterns on them.

Okay, now they're sort of rendering correctly, except they're upside down. And half the height they're meant to be. And have melted across the bottom of the screen.

They look great now!

I mean, they're only taking up the bottom-left 1/16th of the screen, but they look great!

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

The next #NovaSquadron tour stop was meant to be the Regio Obscurus, but it's on the other side of the planet...so I'm borrowing the Grand Viaduct's mag-railways to get there faster. Ground-attack planes weren't meant to go this fast. Not even red ones. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

The clouds were getting on my nerves, so I trapped them in an alternate dimension. Graphics programming can be weird sometimes. #gamedev #indiedev

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Clara Gale ✈️ NS 0.4.1 out now! @claradoth.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Welcome to the Scarlet Fields, a corner of #NovaSquadron 's Jupiter with such a high density of rare resources, it actually tints the clouds red. Very ominous and angry. Totally not making me hungry or anything. #gamedev #indiedev #screenshotsaturday

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