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James | CWS 🇨🇦

@coastwide.systems
1.9K followers 2.7K following 1.1K posts

Game development studio building games for #linux (and other OS's too) using the #bevy engine and #rustlang. #gamedev #indiedev coastwidesystems.com discord.gg/Rg8MBJAvu4 ko-fi.com/coastwidesystems/tip

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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 9h
I should point out tho that freezes are rare under normal usage. But I make heavy use of podman quadlets and things get pretty hairy; I encounter freezes at least a couple times a month, especially if I'm iterating on a new quadlet & issue a lot of daemon-reload's
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 9h
It does have one major issue that bothers me: it fails by freezing, theoretically to protect the system. BUT, when shutdown/reboot are also tied to systemd it means there's no safe way to recover the system (even ssh'ing in is janky) For a headless server it's bad, but not worth using SysV over
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 10h
Same, systemd isn't perfect but sys V outgrew its usefulness a long, long time ago. And is abhorrently slow. Seems to me like most SysV fanatics are old timers with cherished arcane startup shell scripts they can't bear to part with (nor decipher how they work anymore)
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 30/09/2026
A router that can do VLAN's + policy based routing would do the trick, or a PiHole. But that doesn't really protect you, the TV's still collect data and send it back to remote servers, you've just changed the route by using a VPN and hiding your network source IP
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 28/09/2026
Thanks!! ❤️ Really need to get my updated capsule art done...and the new trailer...and everything else 😅
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 25/09/2026
Oh man that brings back memories, I'd completely forgotten about PB Navigator 😂 Reminds me about that educational suite some PB systems also came with, can't remember too well but had some minigames like zapping viruses in the bloodstream, a dinosaurs search & other stuff
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 24/09/2026
Ah nice, I'll need to give that a try (also running GrapheneOS)! I miss messing around with the PinePhone & full blown mobile Linux 😆
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 24/09/2026
Is that a PinePhone I spy? Little hard to tell, but that chonk + Linux-on-a-phone looks familiar 😆
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 23/09/2026
And note that the dashboard is bugged with Firefox so gotta use a chrome based browser to do it 😤
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 22/09/2026
This looks pretty cool, link to their steam page for anyone who wants to look it up store.steampowered.com/app/4882000/...
store.steampowered.com
The Hollowing on Steam
You’ve taken a maintenance job, flying between the inter-settlement comms towers in the megastructure. Land, fix, on to the next job. What could go wrong? The Hollowing is a narrative first-person hor...
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 21/09/2026
Oh yeah, they all do it. Some are worse than others, but I've always been able to hear the whine 😖
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 18/09/2026
Ah thanks for posting with the link to the source - I've been using this badge, but wherever I got it from (can't remember, was ages ago) it was suffering from jpeg compression so will be good to get the original png up 👍
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 18/09/2026
Alright, kindergarten gradual entry is finally DONE for my youngest 🎉 I can finally focus on some gamedev without needing to drop what I'm doing to chauffeur kids to/from school/after school programs, and everyone starts school at the same time, no more offset start times
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 18/09/2026
this seems better than my plan to teach the kids computer: step 1: get them hooked on games step 2: wipe laptop step 3: give them a USB drive with Arch & a printout of the Arch wiki installation guide if they want screen time badly enough they'll figure it out.... is what I tell myself 😅
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 18/09/2026
And good riddance, but the SCRD is notoriously incompetent so a fresh face on the mayor's seat isn't going to accomplish much; we _could_ have had an actual solution to the water shortage, but council didn't want to do their jobs & now provincial funding for a reservoir is going to expire
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 15/09/2026
For solo devs in particular, the games kinda need to be simple. Making games is hard (when not using AI) My game isn't even out and I've had to scale back my public socials posts because of AI ripping off my art - which isn't even all that good in the first place
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 15/09/2026
As another comment said: get in the habit of using source control. GitHub & GitLab are free, and if git is too intimidating there's mercurial or subversion it's not just about backing up either, it tracks changes over time and branches, which is crucial if you ever want to be part of a team
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 14/09/2026
It was pretty janky & often caused more problems in the long run; had to fix more than a few systems that were installed that way back in the day
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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 · 09/09/2026
I've never been able to get that working properly, would be nice if it did; solodev'ing I struggle to regularly post updates to a single socials site let alone keep up with all of them 😢
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Reposted by James | CWS 🇨🇦
Aftermath @aftermath.site · 09/09/2026
After years of company stalling, Blizzard workers win mega-contract that applies to all unionized teams aftermath.site/blizzard-union...
the famous orc statue outside blizzard's HQ in irvine, california
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Reposted by James | CWS 🇨🇦
Sean Murray @nomansbsky.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
No Man's Sky Cosmos 📋Own A Space Station 🤝Alliances 🛰️Orbital Bases 📡Space Hulks 🚀Anniversary Expedition 🗺️Star Map 💎Deep-Space Looting 🪨Asteroid Belts 🦠Infested Outposts ☀️The Sun 🧙‍♀️Dev Commentary 🧲Tractor Beam ❄️Ice Fields 🪐Outposts ⛰️Improved Terrain 🔫Shipbreaking
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Reposted by James | CWS 🇨🇦
Valheim @valheimgame.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
We’re proud to announce that #Valheim 1.0 is out now! Gather your friends, sharpen your axes and check out the patch notes below. We’ll see you in the tenth realm! valheim.com/news/valheim...
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 07/09/2026
Lou's Lagoon is a good one with kids, I play with my 4y old and read the dialog to her
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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 likeA photo of my laptop, drawing tablet & coffee overlooking blue sky and mountains
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 06/09/2026
I'm in this picture and I don't like it 😆😅
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 06/09/2026
Looks great! And here I am still stuck on 0.14 😆
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 05/09/2026
No AI here either 💪
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 05/09/2026
CachyOS is great but it's really dependent on the age of your hardware, especially on AMD chips; I actually found it slower on my Zen 2 laptop than vanilla Fedora But Bazzite deserves a shoutout too - by far the easiest distro to get up and running, especially for Nvidia GPU's
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 05/09/2026
For non steam games Lutris, while not perfect, does have a lot of community maintained scripts and runners for getting other games running without too much complexity
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 03/09/2026
It's not as hard as it seems, but definitely understand the difficulty moving a lot of established processes over. But comes with some real benefits too when you really get into the Linux-y way of doing things, stuff like Vulkan (not DX) by default, containerized builds...
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 02/09/2026
Some good recommendations, but doesn't address one big, derpy elephant in the room: Windows 100% of my gamedev work is in Linux (Fedora) and it's pretty straightforward to setup toolchains to cross compiling to Win (or, less easily, Mac) without needing to touch that US slop
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 02/09/2026
I'm starting to wonder if the surveys are bugged again; I used to get these pretty regularly but haven't seen one on any Linux system in my household (mine, wife's, kids) in over a year now. The only one I've seen was one when I briefly booted into the old Win10 partition a few months ago
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 31/08/2026
Nice job! gamepad support was (is) a huge headache for me. Watch out for keyboards that self identify as a gamepad (some Ducky's do this) 😆
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 31/08/2026
I do this on Discord Working on getting a blog of some sort going where I can safely channel my urges to write long monologues on highly specific topics 😆
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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
My favourite is Star Citizen: live grenade teleports back to your hand after being thrown
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 30/08/2026
Verdict so far: "I like this game, it's the best!"
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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 · 29/08/2026
I definitely feel your pain with shitty hardware vendor support; it was the single biggest headache I dealt with as a firmware engineer and is a big reason so many IoT devices are running vulnerable, outdated firmware
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 27/08/2026
❤️
A young girl holding up her Lou's Lagoon postcard, concealing her face for safety
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 27/08/2026
It's not hopeless, plenty of people out there still making real games & not serving up digital diarrhea bsky.app/profile/eter...
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 27/08/2026
Congrats! My daughter (4y) has been super excited after we played the demo; she's been constantly asking if "Lou's Gagoon" is ready yet since getting her promo postcard 😆
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Reposted by James | CWS 🇨🇦
Tiny Roar Games @tinyroargames.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Lou's Lagoon has officially landed! 🛬🎉 Explore the vibrant Limbo archipelago now on Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 1|2! #IndieDev #GameDev #IndieGame
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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 · 27/08/2026
Oh wow, now those bring back memories 😆
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 26/08/2026
Oh come on @proton.me - silently enable auto categorizing emails and not show them in the main inbox anymore? Really? I have a ton of missed email now because I had no idea they were getting automatically "sorted" into categories, and badly too. Is nothing safe from enshittification 🤬
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 25/08/2026
it really is all bad; I've got a pile of unusable Razer crap. Even something as simple as their Cynosa kbd had the firmware crap out. my Pro mouse can't connect to its own dongle, routinely forgets is bluetooth pairing. one workplace their laptops were banned they were so awful. utter trash
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 25/08/2026
I generally like low profile keys too but they just don't seem to be popular these days. I've been using a Ducky One for my PC for the last couple years and...it's ok? I like the feel, but the mechanical switches constantly gum up & need to be cleaned. I'd probably try a hall effect next 🤷
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James | CWS 🇨🇦 @coastwide.systems · 25/08/2026
I wouldn't touch a Razer keyboard, or any of their hardware tbh I had a Razer Pro from a past job and it was solidly the _worst_ keyboard I've ever used: buggy firmware, short battery life (lasted ~2 working days), forced F1-12 as media keys only remappable using their Windows app
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