iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 10/09/2026

Dash Galaxy, without a doubt. But to this day I still have no clue 😆 We were broke and only had a couple games for the NES so kept coming back to this trying to figure out what you're supposed to do; still resentful of my dad trading Castlevania in for this garbage... 😤

The box art for the NES game Dash Galaxy, offering precisely zero relevance or resemblance to the game itself. A 50's styled sci-fi space captain with wavy hair and goggles wearing a red militaristic blazer is shown dashing out of the artwork, pursued by...pterodactyls presumably, and some sort of robotic snake thing. In the background is a retro (even by 80's standards) space craft and alien world. To the best of my knowledge, none of these things are present in the game, except that your character (assumed to be Dash Galaxy) is kinda coloured red in game.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 06/09/2026

Taking a break from the game's pixel art & working on some explorations to improve on my (crappy) capsule art. Plus enjoying the cooler end of summer weather 🏖

Screenshot of my desktop showing Krita and a rough sketch laying out what Heat Retreat's updated capsule art could look like

A photo of my laptop, drawing tablet & coffee overlooking blue sky and mountains

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 30/08/2026

Glad I'm already entirely off Google products entirely, but this is infuriating 😡 It is, and always will be, Lake Ontario

A screenshot of Google maps depicting their preemptive capitulation to the orange pedophile: a search for Lake Ontario showing Lake America

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 30/08/2026

Alright, we're finally trying out Lou's Gagoon (Lou's Lagoon, as pronounced by my daughter, 4)! She's been super excited & asking, she just finished making her character. Looking great @tinyroargames.bsky.social 😄

A young girl looks at Lou's Lagoon, just finishing the intro on a PC monitor

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 27/08/2026

Tiny fire! This I found pretty challenging at only 8x8 px, kept finding it either too energetic or too static. But good enough for now, I'll probably adjust it more once I have it in the game properly

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 24/08/2026

Multitasking game dev/hockey dad😅

A laptop and travel mug of coffee in the foreground; on the laptop screen is an in progress art asset for Heat Retreat being worked on in Aseprite depicting an orange tent and boreal (more temperate if I'm being honest) forest

In the background is a hockey arena where my son is participating in a pre-season warm up camp, awkwardly scheduled mid-day on a weekday

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 15/08/2026

Woah, woke up to a bunch of new followers! I don't have any exciting game progress to show today but new art coming SOON Also been working at getting a blog going so watch out for that, here's a little teaser of one of the article topics I have coming up coffee.coastwidesystems.com

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 04/08/2026

It lives!!! PC is back in action; thankfully only the motherboard burned out & I was able to scrape together enough change for a replacement (helps that old hardware isn't ludicrously expensive). Freckles missed gaming nights as much as I did 😆

The gutted out interior of my PC case, with an extremely messy desk plus kids' artwork in the background

The "new" motherboard, with my old CPU cleaned up & mounted (an old AMD 3950X)

Freckles standing behind me while I reassembled the PC, impatiently waiting for a gaming session beside her spot next to my desk

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 03/08/2026

Guess it's not all bad having my PC out of commission. Still miss having a full sized monitor though, laptop screen real estate is pretty limited for gamedev

A photo of my System76 laptop and mug of coffee outside on a balcony with blue sky and mountains in the background

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 16/07/2026

Been diverted from gamedev with some sysadmin shenanigans lately: the homelab was ailing after a long power outage and I went down a horrific rabbit hole

A photo of a home server rack, with a 4U server pulled out, opened and with its guts spewed out. In the background are some elderly displays

A closeup of the power supply mess. A very old, not modular power supply with an overabundance of the legacy 4 pin molex style cables. Seriously, there are a ton of the things and they're all hardwired in.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 17/06/2026

End result is actually not bad, tastes more like a self contained sloppy joe than taco. I shall call it the "unsloppy joe" 🧑‍🍳💋

The taco bun aka "unsloppy joe", unremarkable as a roughly perfect shaped white bun with fork holes on top and a small amount of cheese/sauce leaking at the bottom. It has been stylishly positioned on a plain white plate atop a grey marbled countertop

The "unsloppy joe" cross section, bearing the cheesy beefy innards of the otherwise unremarkable white bun. Still resting on the plain white plate and marbled countertop

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 17/06/2026

I am a monster: behold the taco bun (making bread, had leftover beef to use up from tacos last night)

A flattened out round of white bread dough with "Taco Sauce" and cheese

A round of white bread down, "Taco Sauce" and cheese with leftover taco ground beef

The taco buns arranged on a baking tray with stylish fork punctures for ventilation

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 11/06/2026

Very WIP still but made enough progress on the first aid minigame for Heat Retreat to whip up a video of the gameplay in action! There are bugs (like health meter & timer) and tuning/balance to do, and art needs polish, but it's been too long since I've had anything worth showing 😆 #gamedev #bevy

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 04/06/2026

Uh oh, looks like I walked in on the boss doing a surprise code review; the mini game isn't done yet! I swear I'll clean it up before I merge 😅

Freckles the elderly border collie, caught on the couch in front of my laptop looking at me disapprovingly, with my abandoned coffee cup on an end table beside her.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 31/05/2026

To me it's not worth wasting time fixing an OS that's inherently malicious/broken. But on older hardware you can't go wrong with Linux; my machines are far from new or high performance & Bazzite is so easy to use that my kids (4 & 7 now) use it no problem.

A screenshot of a post by user @brunodias.bsky.social

Microsoft losing the plot to the extent that games running on Linux through a compatibility layer are now not only faster but *assumed to be faster* than games running natively on Windows should be an even bigger story than it already is.

For gaming, Microsoft views steamOS as the benchmark, and is working to optimize the platform so that steamOS and Windows gaming performance are comparable. Within the next year or two, it believes that Windows will be able to truly compete head-to-head with steamOS in gaming performance on identical hardware due to foundational changes that are being made to the platform in coming months.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 15/05/2026

Test results are looking good for the Heat Retreat status system rework! Boss has completed her code review (I am dubious of how thorough she was), so we're good to merge 🎉 All the simulations are running & returning data within expected ranges 💪

Freckles the border collie mix & Chief Napping Officer of CWS stationed at her (my?) laptop running Heat Retreat tests. She is lounging on a grey couch with (theoretically) protective red bedsheet. In the he background are mountains and somewhat gloomy weather working to decide if it'll be a normal storm or thunderstorm today.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 14/05/2026

Even the boss has had enough of listening to me talk through testing/tuning/debugging my new body temperature math for Heat Retreat 😅

Freckles the border collie mix & Chief Napping Officer of CWS, annoyed at being disturbed from her nap by my ranting about unexpected results from my math, resting on a grey couch with her head on an adjacent pillow

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 11/05/2026

Kids were off school on Fri, so made it a long weekend & went camping for a little screen de-tox. Feeling refreshed and ready to get back to work on Heat Retreat getting the status refactor tested, polished & merged

A small, unnamed lake deep in the woods, surrounded by trees (mostly fir) - some water logged & dead - with a few lily pads and driftwood in the foreground.

A red pickup truck with a grey + green trimmed tent erected in the bed. Beside is a small blue tent with orange trim. The camp is set up in a clearing just off an abandoned, derelict forest service road that runs next to a small lake.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 28/04/2026

Dammit GitLab 🤦 Maybe one day the migration tool will actually work....

A screenshot of GitLab's GitHub migration page, with the following text:
"Import repositories from GitHub

Select the repositories you want to import

Owned
Collaborated
Organization

The more information you select, the longer it will take to import.

To import collaborators, or if your project has Git LFS files, you must use a classic personal access token with read:org scope. Learn more.
Use alternative comments import method

The default method can skip some comments in large projects because of limitations of the GitHub API.
Import Markdown attachments (links)

Import Markdown attachments (links) from repository comments, release posts, issue descriptions, and pull request descriptions. These can include images, text, or binary attachments. If not imported, links in Markdown to attachments break after you remove the attachments from GitHub.
Import collaborators

Import direct repository collaborators who are not outside collaborators. Imported collaborators who aren't members of the group you imported the project into consume seats on your GitLab instance.
No GitHub repositories found"

Selected is the "Organization" tab, frustratingly showing "No GitHub repositories found" in bold text.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 25/04/2026

Ending a stressful week of gamedev on a high note

Photo of a beer can in the foreground and hot dog being roasted over a fire. The background is an unkempt yard with a kids playground and trees

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 14/04/2026

And here's the sprint animation (bsky only lets me do one animation per post it seems 🤷). If you see this while out hunting in Heat Retreat you're in some trouble 😆 #gamedev #indiedev #pixelart

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 14/04/2026

Going to try posting this again, I made this what feels like ages ago but it didn't upload/display on bsky properly at the time, but was going through my game assets for Heat Retreat & remembered #gamedev #indiedev #pixelart

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 14/04/2026

Following on getting the new fatigue model in, it's becoming increasingly critical to show some party status info for players while driving (and improve the party management view) 🤔 Considering some sort of fade in/out effect around the edges but not sold on the idea

A screenshot of Heat Retreat's travel scene, depicting an 80's station wagon with headlights on travelling on a dirt road in rainy weather with forests and mountains in the background, done in pixel art. The foreground contains the dashboard UI showing various information to the player: a retro style digital thermometer taped to the dashboard for temperature, vehicle speedometer for speed, odometer for distance travelled, a classy digital calculator watch for time & date, an old smart phone with no reception for distance to next location, and a yellow milk crate showing current food supply.

A screenshot of Heat Retreat's "party management" tab, currently a work in progress, with some markup done in GIMP highlighting the current way health, fatigue & hydration of party members is shown. The art shows a folding chair & sleeping bag around a campfire, but notably no character art shown (because I haven't made it yet). The UI contains tabs along the left edge reading "Roadside", "Party" (currently selected), "Vehicle", "Supplies", and "Leave". In the main view are buttons in a column reading "Rest", "Rations" and "First Aid", with small boxes containing status bars representing party members & their current status levels (not very clearly, hence "work in progress")

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 02/04/2026

The boss appears content (or bored - all code and no art lately) with today's gamedev progress: character hydration and fatigue handling are done! As far as updating game state & consumers goes; still need to finish the drain systems

Freckles, the black and white border collie and game development supervisor extraordinaire, asleep on a grey couch with her head resting on a blue pillow

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 01/04/2026

This about sums up the mood here today

Freckles, the border collie mix, "supervising" me doing game development & accounting on a dreary, rainy day

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 22/03/2026

Found a wild Grogu on our hike earlier 😆

A tiny Grogu taking shelter in the hollow of a fir tree, with ample moss and lichen draping to provide dramatic effect

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 22/03/2026

Enjoyed some much needed time away away from the screen & gamedev today

Freckles, our border collie mix of some sort, proudly surveying her domain on a trail among cedar and fir trees

Freckles again, ploughing deeper into the cedar & fir, with denser salal and sword fern surrounding her

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 16/03/2026

Super busy lately, haven't been posting much (not much visually exciting to show) but thought I'd show some iteration progress (NOT done yet) on one of Heat Retreat's mini games Starting from crappy sketches in GIMP to in engine coloured blockouts to minimal functional gameplay #indiedev #gamedev

One of several sketches made in GIMP concepting the look & feel of Heat Retreat's "first aid/triage" mini-game. Using lime green for illegible notes to self, including snippets like "flow rate indicator? RSB -> pressure to change flow rate", "clean antiseptic bandage", "health". At the top as title is "<Name>", with a copy pasted texture of pixel art first aid supplies with text "Qty: 12.8". Other elements include a central "swing meter" style game, on the right in red is the "health meter" showing time until death, and various poorly drawn sketches of possible UI buttons/controls/layout

An early in-engine screenshot of the minigame, visually uninteresting but here I'm' working on UI node size/placement using large filled in colour blocks, with early drafts of the health meter and character name/title (testing game resource access). The character name here is "Paul", and in the top right corner is the game pause/menu UI button, and lower right contains the "back" button (keeping visually consistent with other parts of the game)

Decided that the right-aligned placement was too crowded with the UI buttons, so tested left alignment (super easy to do in Bevy!!!). Includes further work on other game elements that aren't obviously visible here (the text, while simple, represents a lot of UI hierarchy logic additions). The text reads "Paul" as the title stilll, upper center (purple) node "DEBUG: METER NODE BRANCH", lower left (blue) node "DEBUG: SUPPLY NODE BRANCH", lower right (dark blue) node: "DEBUG: BUTTON NODE BRANCH". The health meter is largely unchanged, still bright green but now on the left edge with "16:34" time remaining until death; not a final number, do not expect to have 16+ minutes to save your characters life ;)

Removed the colour in-fill blocks, started adding some textures (with several yellow/black placeholders). The swing meter in the middle upper area is fully functional here, albeit using debug colours, with simple debug text showing the action "quality" (100 shown) as a percentage to the left with resources consumed by the action (0 here) to the right - these are debug primarily & will be made prettier/more readable. The lower left node now shows the first aid supply texture and the current inventory amount, and the right node contains the "action compass" which the player will use to play the minigame. Also visible is the first pass on controller glyphs, with PlayStation D-Pad being tested here (note the debug triangle button floating on the top edge). The "time to death" now shows 3:00 instead of 16 minutes. Other UI elements are unchanged, with the title still "Paul" and the pause menu button in the top right corner/back button in the bottom right

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 03/03/2026

Evidence, from current crappy old 1080p TV 😂

The back of an old 1080p TV revealing a rats' nest of HDMI, ethernet and USB extender cables. A home brew "smart" TV. Buried in the wiring is an old, retired NUC mini PC

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 08/02/2026

Set up our very first #gaming LAN party with the kids today! All #foss with a combination of Fedora & Bazzite #Linux on the laptops. Played some SuperTuxKart and a little Rigs of Rods afterward 😄

Three laptops arranged around a dinongnroom table connected to a switch in the center. Visible on the nearest screen is SuperTuxKart, with a dark red DualSense controller set beside it. In the background is a container of maple syrup, because Canada

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 06/02/2026

Quickly whipped up an alternate engine compartment (and fixed a few bad lines elsewhere), thinking the darker/less detail works a bit better but going to need to think on it a while. Should probably get it in engine to see for sure though, so back to coding for now #pixelart #gamedev #indiedev

A pixel art station wagon, slightly angled and with the hood open revealing the engine. This is one of three vehicle types in Heat Retreat and is intended to be part of the vehicle status check/maintenance view, thus is higher resolution than the usual vehicle assets

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 06/02/2026

Oh, and here's more of my #NoAI reference images - when the view/angle I'm looking for doesn't exist, make a really shitty mockup in Gimp 😆

A screenshot of Gimp on the left with a butchered mockup of an 80's station wagon, attempting to represent what it looks like with the hood open at a specific angle. On the right are a selection of image search results showing various other angles of the vehicle

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 06/02/2026

For any #gamedev out there - especially the ones that say Linux is too hard - here's how easy it can be to support Linux, MacOS and Win when you plan ahead: a section of Heat Retreat's Makefile (for #bevy and #rustlang here) To make a release build, I run 1 command and it's done 😎

$A screenshot of Heat Retreat's Makefile, full text exceeds character limits but the key sections contain: linux: @echo "Building Linux executable..." @mkdir -p ./target/release @if command -v podman >/dev/null 2>&1; then \ podman pull quay.io/cws/steam-linux-builder:latest; \ podman run -v .:/src:z -v ./target/release:/output:z -t quay.io/cws/steam-linux-builder:latest release; \ else \ $(CARGO) build --release; \ fi @echo "✓ Linux executable built" win: @echo "Building Windows executable..." @$(CARGO) build --target=x86_64-pc-windows-msvc --release @echo "✓ Windows executable built" mac: @echo "Building macOS universal binary..." @CC=o64-clang CXX=o64-clang++ LIBZ_SYS_STATIC=1 $(CARGO) build --target=aarch64-apple-darwin --release @CC=o64-clang CXX=o64-clang++ LIBZ_SYS_STATIC=1 $(CARGO) build --target=x86_64-apple-darwin --release @echo "✓ macOS executables built"$

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 06/02/2026

Took a while but here we are on the station wagon "maintenance" texture for Heat Retreat! Not super happy with the engine, will probably iterate on that; looks "noisy" to me compared to the rest of the vehicle but there's lots of stuff going on there so tough to get right 🤔 #pixelart #indiegamedev

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 27/01/2026

Not done yet, but I haven't been posting much lately (cold/flu season hit us hard this year & been focused on #gamedev #indiedev over socials stuff). This one I'm thinking is too big and will probably need to redo it, but also here's a look at my #NoAI bashed together "reference" image 😂 #pixelart

A screenshot showing my workspace for an in-progress station wagon art asset for Heat Retreat. On the left is the program Aseprite with an 80's era, classic wood panelled station wagon, and on the right is one of my reference images of said station wagon in a Firefox browser window. The desktop environment is "Sway" on Fedora Linux.

A screenshot showing the original reference image (also seen in the previous screenshot) on the right in my Firefox browser window as well as another tab with Gimp open and my very poorly bashed together reference image to help me get an idea of how to draw the engine relative to the rest of the vehicle.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 14/01/2026

Got up for a coffee refill & this is what I come back to Getting a strong "I think we need to talk about your performance lately" vibe 😅 #indiedev #gamedev #solodev

A photo of my border collie lying on the couch in front of my laptop giving a judgmental side look

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 14/01/2026

Alright, at a point where I have some new-ish stuff to show (still WIP though): supply management UI! Not the most exciting thing but needed. And finally getting some visuals in for "upgrade" class items, like a backpack (which I'm told looks like wood 😅 - may need to fix) #indiegamedev #pixelart

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 20/12/2025

Been working a lot on under-the-hood stuff lately (gamepads fully work now!), but started on improving the party supply management view for Heat Retreat! Very early stage work in progress still but can show the side by side changes so far for #screenshotsaturday #indiegamedev #bevy #pixelart

A screenshot showing the updated, very work in progress party supply management view. Pictured is a tab style navigation bar to the left listing "Homestead", "Party", "Vehicle", Supplies" and "Leave". In the main view is the player wallet at the top showing $800, the blue hatchback vehicle with its trunk open and a full load of supplies: antibiotics, first aid, fresh (perishable) food, canned food, rifle/shotgun/pistol ammunition, water, duct tape (repair material), wiper blades, fuel and tires. To the right of the vehicle is some background art including an orange tent and camp fire. Not yet implemented are the remaining "upgrade" class of items, which will occupy the empty space.

A screenshot showing the old simply text based party supply management view. Pictured is a tab style navigation bar to the left listing "Roadside", "Party", "Vehicle", Supplies" and "Leave". In the main view is the player wallet at the bottom of the list showing $800 and a listing of supplies: antibiotics, first aid, fresh (perishable) food, canned food, rifle/shotgun/pistol ammunition, water, duct tape (repair material), wiper blades, fuel and tires. To the right is a text pane showing "upgrade" class of items, which are not yet implemented in the new view but include "Rifle" and "Small Backpack" in the listing. At the top is a text heading "Caravan Supplies" with a dev flag indicating localization text has not been found & fall back is in use.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 17/12/2025

Well, here's a boring picture of the updated colour selector. Not quite "final" yet, but switched it over to use the game palette instead of the engine's definitions, and increased the number of colours from ~12 before to 32 (palette has 64, but that was too crowded & hard to read)

A screenshot of Heat Retreat's "Game Settings" menu, showing a section of the "Appearance" category containing toggles for Parallax, Lightning Flash, and Health/Fatigue/Hydration/UI colour selectors. At the bottom of the screen are "Back" and "Reset to Defaults" buttons.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 11/12/2025

Thanks to my amazing wife I have a new phone that I immediately switched over to GrapheneOS, and am now 99% de-Googled 🎉 Appreciate all the work that goes into the OS @grapheneos.org - aiming to one day be a contributor when my financial situation is a bit more stable 😅

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 08/12/2025

Just discovered a feature in duckduckgo to block sites from search results! I am so fed up with #AIslop articles polluting search results that I'm now outright blocking entire domain names when I see this crap. "Share feedback" also has an option specifically to report AI generated search results

A screenshot of a duckduckgo search result snippet showing the three dot menu with the new option to block a particular site from search results: "Block this site from all results [NEW]"

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 06/12/2025

Taking a slight departure from posting about gamedev stuff to share some #mushroom #fungi pictures from recent autumn adventures; the stuff that I get my ideas & art direction inspiration from when working on Heat Retreat

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 03/12/2025

Forgot to post this before but borrwed a #SteamDeck for some testing recently. Found lots of bugs (mostly gamepad/input stuff that I'm actively working on), but Heat Retreat was looking pretty good on handheld (runtime v3 here) #gamedev #indiedev #gaming #LinuxGaming #Steam #SteamOS #bevy #rustlang

A poorly lit photo showing the Heat Retreat travel state running natively on a SteamDeck. In the scene is the red 50's era pickup truck and its stylized the dashboard UI showing fuel, outside temperature, date/time, speed, distance traveled (via the odometer), distance to next location and a simple high/med/low food representation using an ubiquitous yellow milk crate. The travel scenery depicts the truck driving down a small side road through a deciduous forest, with low distant mountains in the background and a sunny day with scattered clouds.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 02/12/2025

My low tech #gamedev #indiedev bug tracker I can see it at a glance, it's there guilting me all the time, quick to add new items/rearrange topics and it's satisfying crossing stuff off 😆

A photo of the bottom of my monitor with three orange post-it notes containing the topics "Travel", "Shopping" & "Settings". Each contains barely legible bullet point notes of bugs or pending features under each heading, with completed items roughly crossed out.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 27/11/2025

Today marks 1 month exactly but Heat Retreat's shopping rework is complete* 🎉 Couple things I'll circle back to (eg, station wagon art I'm not super happy with) but it's all functional! Time to get back on that gamepad support.... #gamedev #indiedev #gaming #bevy #linux #pixelart

Heat Retreat's newly reworked shopping UI, showing the player's vehicle (a red retro style pickup truck here) on the left with sellable commodities arrayed (mostly) sensibly in/around the vehicle and a simple shop with a goods to buy displayed. Items all have a white outline to help show what can be interacted with, and focused items have a (configurable) coloured outline (red shown here). The shopkeeper uses a speech bubble to communicate to the player the item type & price per unit ("I'd consider $4/L for water" shown here). In the upper left region is the player's wallet ($658.00), the upper right corner has the pause/menu UI button shown as an ubiquitous double vertical bar pause icon, and the lower right has the back/leave UI button, shown as an arrow pointing right. Not shown here is the trade dialog box, where the player can see more detailed information about the commodity in focus & select how much to buy or sell.

Heat Retreat's newly reworked shopping UI, showing the player's vehicle (a brown wood panelled retro station wagon here) on the left with sellable commodities arrayed (mostly) sensibly in/around the vehicle and a simple shop with a goods to buy displayed. Items all have a white outline to help show what can be interacted with, and focused items have a (configurable) coloured outline (none in focus here). The shopkeeper uses a speech bubble to communicate to the player the item type & price per unit, not shown in this screenshot since no item is currently in focus. In the upper left region is the player's wallet ($585.00), the upper right corner has the pause/menu UI button shown as an ubiquitous double vertical bar pause icon, and the lower right has the back/leave UI button, shown as an arrow pointing right. Not shown here is the trade dialog box, where the player can see more detailed information about the commodity in focus & select how much to buy or sell.

Heat Retreat's newly reworked shopping UI, showing the player's vehicle (the light blue 90's era hatch back/compact show here) on the left with sellable commodities arrayed (mostly) sensibly in/around the vehicle and a simple shop with a goods to buy displayed. Items all have a white outline to help show what can be interacted with, and focused items have a (configurable) coloured outline (none in focus here). The shopkeeper uses a speech bubble to communicate to the player the item type & price per unit, not shown in this screenshot since no item is currently in focus. In the upper left region is the player's wallet ($620.00), the upper right corner has the pause/menu UI button shown as an ubiquitous double vertical bar pause icon, and the lower right has the back/leave UI button, shown as an arrow pointing right. Not shown here is the trade dialog box, where the player can see more detailed information about the commodity in focus & select how much to buy or sell.

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 20/11/2025

A lot of code work since the last update, but got a lot of the edge cases covered now. Finished up replacing the placeholder textures too, and worked at fixing up the fuel & water assets (tried a different approach with the water, still not 100% happy with it) #indiegamedev #pixelart #bevy

A screenshot of the re-worked Heat Retreat shopping interface, with retro red pickup truck vehicle option shown on the left and shop consisting of a dark wood table, drab shopkeeper in a blue cap and brick wall in the background with a clothesline. In the truck bed are the player's sellable goods, showing water, fuel, first aid supplies, food (fresh and canned), and a variety of ammunition. For sale in the shop are tires, fuel, water, canned & fresh food, rifle/shotgun/pistol ammunition, and on the ground are duct tape and wiper blades (for vehicle repairs). In focus with a red highlight is the water sellable, with the shopkeeper speech bubble stating "The best I'll do is $4/L for water."

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 18/11/2025

Getting closer to "done" for Heat Retreat's shop rework, starting to dial in the UX & replacing debug text with proper localized stuff. Did the fuel/water assets yesterday but not happy with them, going to work at a few other assets then circle back to those two #indiegamedev #pixelart #bevy

A screenshot of Heat Retreat's new shopping interface. In the foreground is the trade dialog UI box showing an example water purchase. The box is titled "Water $4/L", and contains the text "You currently have: 10.0 L", "How much do you want to trade?", a slider for selecting quantity, and below that is text showing the current selected quantity and sub-total: "3L | $12.00". At the bottom of the box are "Cancel" and "Buy" buttons for mouse/touch interactions. The background shows the red pickup truck vehicle option on the left, a shop with a red brick wall, dark wood table and slightly reclined shopkeeper wearing drab brown clothes and a blue cap. Arrayed in the truck bed are (mostly yellow/black placeholder) assets with white outlines representing the various items that can be sold & buyable shop goods across the shop space. The style is pixel art.

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