It was a sunny spring, 2022: the pandemic was winding down, birds were chirping and the tech sector was booming! Opportunity was everywhere and Coast Wide Systems was founded as a one person engineering operation specializing in embedded Linux contract work.
The good times didn't last: chip shortages crippled hardware firms, and the financial crisis of fall 2022 finished many of them off. The firmware/embedded Linux space was shrinking rapidly with workforce reductions rampant throughout tech, and Coast Wide Systems suffered a year plagued with canceled contracts, false starts on projects that couldn't be funded and rejected quotes for freelance work. After a decade working in the depths of Linux and firmware (and having never built anything even resembling a graphic interface), it was time for some drastic changes: past dreams of one day making a video game resurfaced.
Pivoting in tech is so commonplace as to be cliché, but trite as it may be that's exactly what Coast Wide Systems did. After a considerable amount of study and shelving an overly ambitious idea or two (hint to exciting new projects in the future), the design for Heat Retreat began with the first code commits rolling in shortly after and registration as a Steam partner; Coast Wide Systems was now officially in the game dev biz.
Coast Wide Systems is hard at work getting the company's first title, Heat Retreat, ready to publish. Join the community to follow along on progress and see how we make our games.
Founder
