Game experience

What to play?

The main menu is a catalog of game scenarios with recommendations, similar to a streaming service.

Main sections:

• Recommendations - scenario picks based on interests
• History - continue past games
• Favorites - scenarios you liked
• Watch later - things to come back to

On first launch, Nexus shows trending categories with popular scenarios.

On subsequent launches, Nexus already knows your preferences and shows matching scenarios you haven't tried yet.

For example, if you're into Ancient Rome, space, and racing, your recommendations might include: "Emperor Trajan", "The Fall of Rome", "Ancient Germanic Tribes", "Colonizing Mars", "Monza Circuit", "Jet Engines".

You can open the History section and pick up one of your past games. Saves can be shared with other players.

After choosing a scenario, you can set starting conditions: world features and character traits that kick off the story. Or set nothing and see what happens.

Nexus builds a world for the chosen scenario. Even within the same scenario, every start is different: the world generates fresh.

You can set a game seed to start with the same initial conditions.

That's how you enter the game. But what kind of world awaits inside?

Worlds as knowledge

The world of Nexus is built on knowledge: facts from the past and present, ideas about the future, fiction and imagination. All of it becomes game entities, properties, and connections between them.

Biomes, equipment, creatures, natural phenomena, entire worlds - all are knowledge objects. By default, the world is close to real: flora and fauna, changing seasons, geological and historical eras. People have skills, strengths and weaknesses, personal histories and motivations. They can get sick, injured, and die without help.

Fantasy, sci-fi, post-apocalypse - these are layers on top of the real world. They change the rules but not the logic.

Levels of detail

Detail can be adjusted. In the simple variant, the world model is simplified and events are predetermined - good for replicating the experience of classic games or avoiding unnecessary complexity. This mode also works for static simulations - like an interactive encyclopedia about how things work, without complex behavior. An isolated sandbox for testing facts.

Deep simulations

In a deep simulation, the world operates as a multi-layered system: nature shifts under the influence of climate and resources, ecosystems respond to environmental changes, people and societies react to shifts in nature, technology, and politics. The player enters this process as one entity in the world.

Events don't appear out of nowhere - each has a cause. A volcano erupts - ash blocks the sun - cooling - crop failure - famine - migration. The world develops as a chain: each change pulls the next one along.

The story isn't scripted - it emerges from the player's choices, the actions of others, the laws of the world, and chance. If a scenario is historical, events recur not by script. Like the Bronze Age collapse: the climate shifted - civilizations fell.

Player actions trigger chains of events that persist in the world. A group leader might sacrifice a team member and tarnish their reputation - that mark stays with them for the rest of their life.

The greater the influence, the larger the consequences. You can divert a river and fast-forward a century to see how the landscape changes. You can perform a legendary deed, vanish for a thousand years, and return to an era where that name has become myth.

The world keeps its own history, recording events, their causes, and outcomes. You can study your past sessions centuries later - through books, archaeology - and see how old decisions shaped the present.

Every entity - person, animal, organization, state - lives by its own goals, independent of the player. Dreams, love, greed, malice - each has its own.

• Long absence from a loved one weighs heavily on a character and changes their decisions.
• A pharaoh can order a vizier to build a pyramid - and for the vizier, this becomes a defining task.
• Deer forage, reproduce, and avoid predators.
• A crime syndicate seeks to expand its influence and seize new territory.

Everything described below is gameplay from a deep simulation.

Who you can be

Become the richest person alive? Gain superpowers and live forever? Conquer space? Travel to the past with the knowledge of the present?

You can start in the role you want or work your way up from nothing, gradually expanding your character's capabilities.

You can play as more than a human - as a wildfire, an epidemic, an organization, a religion, an entire language.

The scenario is just a starting point. Everything after that is shaped by the player's choices.

At the start, the player defines the experience they want. For example:

• "I'm an astronaut during the colonization of the solar system"
• "I'm an advanced zombie during a zombie apocalypse"
• "I'm the emperor of Rome during its fall"
• "I'm a cucumber in a greenhouse"

Nexus selects the genre, setting, and rules to match the request.

Goal

It can be set by the scenario, the player, or both - or it can be absent entirely. Land your dream job or invent the philosopher's stone - the goal can be anything.

Reaching the goal doesn't end the game: the world keeps going, and you can stay in it as long as you like.

At any point you can switch roles and continue the story from the perspective of another entity in the same world. The world doesn't stop - you're just looking at it through different eyes. You can take turns playing members of the same family or jump between soldiers on a battlefield. The goal changes with the role.

Actions

What you do depends on the situation and who you are. In a fire - run, fight the flames, help others. But you can also do the opposite: help the fire spread. For a pyromaniac, a fire is a completely different experience.

Every entity in the world exists autonomously. Leading isn't direct control - it's requests, orders, and expectations. Whether an order is carried out depends on attitude toward the leader, fear, and the subordinate's abilities.

Observation

You don't have to play directly. Create a character, drop them into an unusual situation, and just watch what happens. The experience can feel like a reality show where the story unfolds on its own.

The result of an observation can be saved and shared with another player as a ready-made world.

This mode also works for modeling: start a small tribe and see if it makes it to the space age.

Genres as modules

At the core of Nexus are rules that work in both role-playing and strategy games. They also work for action, sports, racing, adventure. Not a set of mechanics, but logic - any world can grow from it.

There are no rigid genres. Genres are modules that can be combined and tuned. The foundation is role-playing, because that's how people naturally think about the world.

Want to live the life of Caesar - you can lead legions as a person, fight battles in first person. Need to see the big picture - you can step beyond the human role and watch the battlefield from above.

In role-playing mode, orders pass through a chain of messengers and officers - they can be delayed, distorted, lost. But you can give yourself telepathy - and then orders arrive instantly. That's already closer to a classic strategy.

Dramaturgy

In a fully simulated world, long quiet periods are possible. Playing as a farmer, you might live ten years without wars or disasters. If the goal is to live the role at its natural pace, the world can stay as it is.

But if things get dull, the dramaturgy can be ramped up. The pace quickens, events become denser, the balance between calm and tension shifts - without breaking the world's logic. Minor incidents, unexpected encounters, twists of fate start appearing. An ordinary police officer might end up in a story of chases and investigations.

Push it further - and there's a new story around every corner, and the experience starts to feel like a high-octane action film.

Changing the rules

You can step outside your role and change the rules themselves. A Japanese office clerk decides to become a superhero - that's not an action within the world, but a step that changes the logic of the narrative.

You can alter the laws of the world: add magic, make water flammable, make pigeons sentient. The world keeps developing under the new rules, remaining consistent.

You can experiment with the very foundations: create worlds of paradoxes, mirror universes, realities with different physics.

Even when the laws change, causality continues to work - just within a new framework. The world can be saved and given to others as a starting point. A single player in the role of a "god" can create a world for others to inhabit.

Rules are modules. They can be mixed and matched to build new genres from familiar parts.

In action, the outcome is determined not by the player's reflexes but by the character's skills. For an agile hero, time can feel slowed down. In racing, the success of a turn results from many factors: driver skill, car specs, road surface, grip, rivals, and chance. The same triples, a different genre.

Action + strategy:

• The player governs a kingdom like a civilization.
• Combat follows action rules - skill, timing, danger.

Life sim + survival:

• Everyday character needs - food, sleep, socializing.
• On top - survival rules: shelter, weapons, danger.

How the world looks

The world can be seen in first person, third person, top-down, or as text. A human sees in first person. Thoughts are read as text. Playing as a country or a planet - a top-down view, like in a strategy game.

Nexus isn't tied to a single display mode - the world looks the way the role demands right now.

Even a blind person can interact with the world through sound and description.

The player sees exactly as much as the role allows. A human is limited by their senses. Special abilities expand perception.

In an ancient world, the visual and audio atmosphere emphasizes the presence of gods alongside people. In a post-apocalypse, the visuals convey the fragility of survival. In a bat's world, space is perceived through sound, not sight.

The world map can be any surface: a planet, a region, a ship, a human body. Playing as an ant, the map becomes a meadow by a stream. Scale and viewing angle change with the role.

In combat, time runs second by second. In geological mode, one second spans millions of years.

Time can be paused, sped up, skipped, or rewound. Turn-based mode is also available.

Players online can simultaneously play different characters in the same world, agreeing on how time flows. One is Napoleon, giving orders to an army. Another is a grenadier on the battlefield. You can also be on opposing sides: some are villagers, others are raiders, still others are bandit hunters.

Example: one day as Ivan

The player is Ivan, a peasant in the village of Zarechye. Hungry, wife is pregnant, neighbor Pyotr has lost his cow. Rain is coming.

Under the hood, this situation is a set of simple statements:

• Ivan → is → peasant
• Ivan → hunger → 30%
• Ivan → located_in → Zarechye
• Marya → relation → Ivan's_wife
• Marya → pregnant → 8_months
• Cow → belongs_to → Pyotr
• Cow → location → forest
• Weather → approaching → rain

Each statement is an atom of knowledge. Together they form the current state of the world.

Logic and visuals live separately. The same world state can be text, icons, or 3D.

Text mode:

"You are Ivan, a peasant. Your stomach growls with hunger. Your wife Marya is due soon. You hear your neighbor shouting - his cow has run off. Rain haze on the horizon."

Hex map with icons:

• Village tile with objects: house, barn, stream
• Character: Ivan [satiety 30%, red]
• Family: Marya, pregnant, ~30 days
• Event: shouting near Pyotr's house, tracks lead to the forest
• Effect: rain approaching

3D mode:

A full village scene. Ivan clutches his stomach, Marya sits by the house, shouting and a broken fence in the distance, dark clouds on the horizon.

The player writes: "Help Pyotr find the cow." The system breaks this into facts:

• Ivan → intention → help
• Help → whom → Pyotr
• Help → task → find_cow

The system checks:

• Can Ivan help? - Yes (healthy, nearby)
• How long? - ~1 hour
• Will it affect hunger? - Yes, it will increase
• What happens? - Search in the forest, chance of finding the cow

One hour of game time later:

• Cow → location → found_by_stream
• Ivan → hunger → 45% (increased)
• Pyotr → attitude_toward_Ivan → gratitude +10
• Pyotr → obligation → help_with_roof

The player sees an animation of returning with the cow. Hunger has risen to 45%. Notification: "Pyotr is grateful. Promised to help with the roof."

Language of interaction

The language of interaction follows the logic of human language. The player and the game communicate through it. Every interface state answers the question "what do I see?", and the set of actions answers "what can I do?".

At the simplest level, language is naming things: tree, mother, sun. Next come properties and states: angry person, many stars, strong lion.

Interaction with the world happens on several levels. The player clicks buttons and taps the map. An advanced user works with the knowledge graph through a console. Through the entity editor, you can change the world directly - add objects, properties, connections. And finally - natural language: the player describes what they want in words, and an AI translator converts them into triples. All decisions are made by the engine based on rules.

You can lie on the couch with your phone and speak aloud: "add a forest on the hill", "make it rain", "swap Jupiter and the Sun". The AI translates speech into triples, the engine changes the world. Worlds created with words - literally.

World as a building kit

The world is assembled like a construction set from what players want. What setting: present, future, past, alternate history, fantasy, post-apocalypse. Is there magic? Superpowers? Psionics? How gifted is the character? A fresh hero or a hopeless drifter? What's their biography and motivation? What flaws? How does the world react to them? What fate might await?

A system like this fulfills the core condition of the ideal game - "where the player can do anything they want".