Total Garbage devlog — Double Edge Gaming

Welcome to the Industrial Sector

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Total Garbage has a new region: the Industrial Sector, and it is big.

Head north out of Urban Decay, through the security gate, and you’re into a full road grid with 55 junctions, warehouses, works and yards. There are 35 blocks of industrial and commercial buildings, all producing waste for you to collect.

What’s in it

🪵 Roundwood Sawmill — tip your wood waste here
🧪 Chemical Works — a fully bunded drop-off for the nasty stuff
⛽ A petrol station at the south entrance
😴 A brand-new Rest Area — pull in, press F, rest up, and it’s free

On top of that there are 150+ bins, skips, kerbside piles and litter all over the place. Finally have proper models too, so no more placeholder cubes!

This is the region where the game gets serious. Big sites, big loads, big money. 💸

AI cars, reloading bins, moonlight. And more!

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Lots of changes today — here are most of them.

World & environment

Added street lamps that turn on from 19:00 to 07:00 — 66 in total (3 hand-placed, 63 procedurally generated).
Added soft blue moonlight so nights aren’t pitch black.
Player vehicle headlights now light up the road as brightly as the lampposts. Traffic cars don’t have this.

Traffic

Traffic cars now drive the road network at 15 mph on the left, take corners smoothly, give way at junctions, stop for other vehicles, and have working collision, steering and headlight flashes.
Added 13 traffic car variants.
Not yet built: random spawning of 30–50 cars per level, a gridlock fix, cars following the car ahead instead of braking hard, and moving traffic dots on the minimap.

Bins

Placed bins: 5 kerbside bins per house, 276 commercial bins for flats, 12 random scrap metal items.
Bins reset and refill every 6 in-game hours, and now start 75% full.
Floating bin signs planned but not built yet.

Minimap

Moved to the top right under the money display, on a green background.
Roads and houses now render correctly, and a bug that rendered the whole minimap white is fixed.
Added an Options setting to toggle the minimap, plus a day/time clock underneath it.

Vehicles

All 7 trucks now steer 35% more.

Garbage Types Collection

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Been heads-down on a bunch of features this cycle and honestly had a blast building most of these — it feels like the game is finally starting to come together as a proper loop rather than a pile of disconnected systems. Here’s what’s new.

🗑️ Collecting garbage

The absolute core of the game — walking up to trash scattered around the map and hauling it into your truck. Getting the pickup feel right (the timing, the animation, the satisfying “got it” moment) took more iteration than I expected.

📦 Cargo inventory

A proper system for tracking what’s actually sitting in your truck bed. It unlocks weight limits, sorting and payouts, and gives you something to manage rather than an invisible counter.

⚖️ Weighbridge access

Drive onto the weighbridge, get weighed, then head off to dump your load. It adds a genuine checkpoint to the loop — now you’ve got a reason to plan your route and manage capacity.

🔧 Mechanic workshop

A home base where you patch up your truck and sink your earnings into upgrades — the game’s first real “downtime” space.

🛠️ Upgrades unique to each vehicle

Every truck now has its own upgrade tree, so you have a reason to care which truck you’re driving, not just which one looks cool.

🚚 Truck yard & 🏬 vehicle showroom

Swap between owned trucks from the yard, and browse and buy new ones in the showroom — the big money sink for all that garbage cash.

⛽ Fuel, 💥 damage & 🌗 day/night

Trucks burn fuel, reckless driving has consequences, and a full day/night cycle makes the map feel alive.

📍 Haul container to site

A new delivery-style task — the first taste of mission variety beyond straight garbage collection.

Overall this batch was about turning a single collect-and-dump loop into something with actual structure. Lots more to do, but it’s starting to feel like a game rather than a tech demo.

Reworked from the ground up

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve reworked the game from the ground up since last spring, with the aim of switching from Blueprints to a predominantly C++ architecture.

Features already in, and available in the vertical slice:

Movement, fuel, tiredness, day/night cycle and camera systems.
Truck yard — your HQ, where you store and switch vans and trucks.
Mechanic workshop — purchase and install upgrades for your current vehicle.
Weighbridge, gate access and cargo container systems for the waste centres, your primary places of earning money.
Auto-save.

There should be enough content for a good chunk of gameplay. I’ll be adding sound effects, refinements and initial meshes really soon to make things look comprehensible.

I’m so excited to get this vertical slice out to you — and I’d love to hear your feedback on the systems: what works, what doesn’t, what makes sense.

Card functionality complete!

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The card functionality is now complete. This includes:

Earning a card from bin drops — you get one of the cards at random.
The card displaying the correct number in the widget.
Cards being clicked and consumed correctly in the widget.
The modifier being applied to the game for the allotted time period.
When the timer concludes, the widget clears and the next card is ready for selection.

I’ve really enjoyed building this and it works well, so I’m very pleased. What do you think — does it add variety to the game?