Plans

2.2.1. Creating a game through recommendations

If this is your first launch, the game will offer you trends in different categories with various popular scenarios. If this is not your first launch, the game already knows your interests and shows in Recommendations scenarios you have not tried yet but that you should like. For example, if you like Ancient Rome, space, and racing, recommendations might include topics: "Emperor Trajan", "Fall of Rome", "Ancient Germans", "Colonization of Mars", "Monza Circuit", "Jet Engines". You can choose any topic.

2.2.2. Loading a game

You can open the History section and continue one of the previously created games — the familiar presentation of saving and returning to past game sessions. Saves can be shared with other players.

2.2.3. Scenario configuration

After selecting the base idea of the scenario, you can further define the nature of the future campaign. If desired, starting conditions are set: features of the world and your character, as well as the key traits from which the story begins.

2.2.4. Game generation

Based on the chosen scenario, a game world is generated that matches the chosen theme. Even with the same recommendations, starting conditions may differ, so each beginning feels unique. If desired, you can set a "game seed" to reproduce similar starting conditions in a new playthrough.

2.3.1. Rules

The universal rules of the world are a common set of regularities that in the ideal form fits role-playing and strategy games. Through them, other genres can also be described — action, sports, racing, adventure, and their subgenres. This is not about specific mechanics, but about principles that allow expressing the logic of most game worlds.

2.3.2. Genres

The game has no rigid genres that constrain mechanics. Instead, genres exist as modules that can be combined and configured like a construction set. The foundation remains role-playing — the most natural and understandable way for a person to interact with the world.

If you want a strategic experience and, for example, to live the life of Caesar, you lead legions as a person, being inside events and participating in battles in first person. If you need to see everything as a whole, you can step outside the human role, grant yourself special abilities, and observe the battlefield from above, receiving a strategic overview. In role-playing mode, orders are not executed instantly: they go through a chain of messengers and officers, may be delayed, distorted, or lost entirely. However, you can step outside the role and give yourself the ability to transmit orders directly, as if telepathically, achieving immediate and unconditional execution—even if they require self-sacrifice. This step gradually shifts the experience from role-playing perception to classical strategy, where commands are carried out immediately and precisely.

In familiar action games, the decisive factor is reaction in fractions of a second; here, the outcome is determined by the character's skill level. For an especially agile hero, time may be perceived as slowed. In racing, successfully taking a high-speed turn manifests as the result of many factors: the driver's skills and condition, the car's characteristics, surface quality, road grip, nearby opponents, and an element of randomness.

2.3.3. Knowledge as the foundation of the game

The world of a universal game relies on knowledge: facts of the past and present, ideas about the future, as well as fiction and fantasy. This knowledge is reflected as game entities, properties, and relationships with which you interact.

Biomes, equipment, creatures, natural phenomena, planets, and whole worlds are perceived as objects of this knowledge. In its base image, such a world is close to reality: flora and fauna, seasons, geological and historical epochs, scientific and technological development. People have skills, strengths and weaknesses, personal history and motivation. They can get sick, suffer injuries, and die without help. Fantasy, sci-fi, alternative, and post-apocalyptic scenarios are layered on top of this foundation, changing individual aspects of the world without destroying its integrity.

2.3.4. Events

Events do not arise by themselves. They are the result of other processes. Drought leads to the death of grass, lack of grass leads to die-off of herbivores, and hungry predators, deprived of prey, may start attacking people. The world develops as a chain of cause and effect, where each change triggers new processes.

The world does not wait for you to intervene. Its history is not predefined and not built on scripts. It is shaped by your choices, actions of other entities, the laws of the world, and randomness. If a scenario has a historical basis, events repeat not because they are "programmed" but because the same causes lead to the same consequences again—like the Bronze Age collapse that arose from a cascade of changes caused by climate.

2.3.5. Consequences of player decisions

Player actions trigger chains of events that remain in the world. For example, in a critical situation a group leader may decide to sacrifice a team member and tarnish their reputation, leaving a mark on the rest of their life.

The stronger the influence, the larger the consequences. You can change a river's course and accelerate time by a century to see how the landscape changes. You can perform a feat, disappear for a thousand years, and return to a new era where your name has become a myth.

The world keeps its own history, preserving key events, their causes, and distant results. You can study your past game sessions hundreds of years later—through books and archaeology—and see how decisions made long ago shaped the current world.

2.3.6. Motivation

Any entity—person, animal, organization, or state—acts within its role and motivation. It strives toward its own goals regardless of you. Dream, love, aggression, greed—states that influence character behavior and push them to actions. For example:

• Long absence from a loved one can heavily affect a character's state and change their decisions.
• A pharaoh may order a vizier to build a pyramid, and for the vizier this becomes a defining task.
• Deer seek food, reproduce, and avoid predators.
• A criminal syndicate seeks to expand influence and seize new territories.

2.3.7. Dramaturgy

In a fully simulated world, long "quiet periods" are possible. If you play as a farmer, you can live ten years without wars, disasters, or major changes. If the goal is to honestly live the role with all its empty days, the world can be left as it is.

But if you get bored, dramaturgy can be intensified. This changes the overall feel: the pace becomes higher, events denser, and the balance of calm and tense moments shifts without breaking the world's logic. In this mode, the world starts behaving less predictably: minor incidents, unexpected meetings, and rare twists of fate appear. The simulation does not break, but the character's life becomes more cinematic—so that an ordinary police officer may gradually end up in a story with chases, investigations, and dramatic turning points.

If you want maximum dynamism, dramaturgy can be intensified even more—and then a new story will arise around almost every corner, and what happens will resemble an action-packed blockbuster.

2.3.8. Changing the rules of the game

You can always step outside the chosen role and change the rules of what is happening. If, while playing a Japanese office clerk, you decide to become a superhero, this is not a usual action within the world, but a step that changes the logic of the narrative.

You can change the world and its laws: add magic, change properties of objects and creatures. In such a world, water may burn like wood, and pigeons may become intelligent. After that, the world continues to develop with the new rules, remaining consistent.

You can experiment with the foundations themselves and create worlds that contradict familiar logic: worlds of paradoxes, mirrorlands, other universes with their own physics and structure of reality. This approach unites gameplay, simulation, and world editing, opening almost unlimited possibilities. Even when changing laws, the world remains coherent because principles of causality continue to operate within the new framework.

A snapshot of the current world can become the basis for a new game. One player, acting in the role of a "god", can create a world in which others will live. This is similar to a mod or map editor, but built into the logic of the universal game itself.

2.4.1. Role-playing

Would you like to become the richest person? Gain superpowers and live forever? Conquer space? Go into the past with the knowledge of the present?

You can start immediately in the desired role or go from scratch, gradually expanding the abilities and boundaries of your character. Role-playing is allowed not only as a person, but also as an event, abstraction, or idea: a fire, an epidemic, an organization, a religion, a language. The initial scenario sets only the starting point, and further development is entirely determined by your choices.

2.4.2. Game goal

The goal of the game can be set by the scenario, by you, or a combination of both, or it can be absent altogether. It can be anything from an everyday task to an epochal achievement—getting a dream job or inventing the "philosopher's stone". Reaching the goal does not end the game: the world continues to live, and you can remain in it as long as you want.

2.4.3. Dynamic role switching

At any moment you can change roles and continue the story from the perspective of another entity in the same world. Such a change does not interrupt what is happening and allows you to see events from a different point of view. For example, you can alternately role-play members of one family or inhabit different soldiers on the battlefield. Such an experience goes beyond the usual role-playing of a single role, unless the game itself is built around the idea of reincarnation.

2.4.4. Player actions

The actions available to you correspond to the current situation and the characteristics of your character. They are formed by the context of what is happening and by who you are at that moment.

For example, in a fire, the expected options usually appear: run away, extinguish the fire, help others. However, you can act differently and, for instance, contribute to the spread of the fire. This difference in available actions reflects the nature of the character—who they are and how they tend to act. For a pyromaniac, the situation of a fire will be perceived differently than for an ordinary person.

2.4.5. Auto and manual control

By default, each entity in the world exists autonomously, acting according to its nature, motivations, and goals. This also applies to your character until you take control of them. If you choose the role of a leader and interact with groups of entities, control is perceived not as direct control but as a system of requests, orders, and expectations.

Other entities may respond to your order or refuse to carry it out—depending on their attitude toward you, available resources, fear, fatigue, or physical limitations.

2.4.6. Observation

You may not play directly. Create an interesting character, place them in an unusual situation, set the desired level of dramaturgy (see item 2.3.7. Dramaturgy), and observe how events develop. Such an experience can resemble watching a film where the story unfolds on its own.

The result of observation can be shared with other players by saving and transferring the state of the world. Perhaps someone's story will become a new blockbuster. This mode is suitable not only for entertainment but also for modeling: you can create, for example, a "turtle civilization" and follow how it goes from the Stone Age to spaceflight.

2.5.1. Camera and presentation

What happens in the game can be perceived in different ways: first-person, third-person, top-down, or even as text. The presentation changes depending on the context and the chosen role. For example, it is natural for a person to see the world in first person, thoughts may be perceived as text, and when playing as a country or planet the view shifts to a strategic top-down overview.

A universal game is not tied to a single presentation method and can look the way that is most convenient for you at the moment. Even a blind person will be able to interact with the world, perceiving objects and events through sound and description.

The scope of the perceived world always corresponds to the current role. If you are a person, you are limited by the capabilities of your senses. If you grant yourself special abilities, perception expands, allowing you to see the hidden or distant.

2.5.2. Graphics and sound

The interface, visual style, animation, music, and sound enhance the game experience and help you feel the chosen role. In a world of antiquity and magical thinking, the visual and sound image emphasizes the duality of the world of people and gods, creating a sense of an additional dimension where every action is filled with sacred meaning. In a post-apocalyptic setting, graphics and sound convey the fragility of survival, a sense of loss, and rare hope for a new beginning. In the world of a bat, space is perceived differently: scale and form are felt through sound rather than sight.

2.5.3. Map

The world or its map can be any surface—a planet, a region, a ship, or even a human body—depending on the chosen role. For example, when playing as an ant, the map becomes a glade by a stream. Perception of space changes with scale: the view may zoom in or out, and the viewing angle may shift.

When zooming in, details appear; when zooming out, they disappear, giving way to larger structures and connections.

2.5.4. Time

Time flows at different speeds depending on the chosen role and preferences. During combat it may run in seconds. In global mode, when modeling geological processes, one second of game time can correspond to millions of years. Acceleration is especially appropriate when playing as beings with a different perception of time—plants or long-lived life forms.

Time can be stopped, sped up, skipped, or reversed. If desired, you can play in turn-based mode without rushing decisions. In some situations, time only passes when controlling a specific character and stops when you are thinking about the next step.

2.5.5. Online play

Players online can simultaneously play as different characters and entities in the same world, having agreed in advance on the rules of time flow. One may be Napoleon issuing orders to the army, another a grenadier attacking enemies on the battlefield. Players may also be in opposition: some are villagers, others are raiders terrorizing a settlement, others are bounty hunters hunting bandits.

2.6.1. Meaning

Nexus can express and reproduce the logic of most existing games at the level of their rules and interactions. This is not about literally copying specific implementations, but about reproducing their core gameplay logic.

This is possible because any game is a set of rules, and rules can be described through simple semantic statements (triplets).

Examples: Dark Souls (in terms of rules):

• Death -> causes -> loss_of_souls
• Bonfire -> is -> respawn_point
• Enemy -> difficulty -> high
• Strike -> depends_on -> stamina

Civilization (in terms of rules):

• Turn -> duration -> depends_on_era
• City -> produces -> [units, buildings]
• Victory -> conditions -> [science, military, culture]

The Sims (in terms of rules):

• Character -> needs -> [hunger, sleep, socialization]
• Need_low -> causes -> bad_mood
• Action -> satisfies -> need

2.6.2. Genre mixes

Since rules are organized as modules, they can be combined. This makes it possible to assemble new gameplay formats from known sets of rules.

Examples: Dark Souls + Civilization:

• You rule the kingdom of Lordran as a civilization.
• Battles and encounters follow Dark Souls rules (skill, timing, danger).

The Sims + zombie apocalypse:

• Everyday needs of Sims (food, sleep, socialization).
• On top of them, survival rules are added (shelter, weapons, danger).

Principle of universality: if game logic can be expressed in words, it can be implemented in Nexus.

2.7.1. Situation in the world

The player is Ivan, a peasant in the village of Zarechye. He is hungry, his wife is pregnant, and the neighbor Pyotr has lost a cow. Rain is approaching.

2.7.2. How the system understands it (triplets)

Inside the system, this situation is described by a set of simple statements:

• Ivan -> is -> peasant
• Ivan -> hunger -> 30% (or Ivan -> satiety -> 30%)
• Ivan -> located_in -> Zarechye
• Marya -> relation -> Ivan_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.

2.7.3. How the player sees it

Logic is separated from visualization and remains unchanged. Depending on the display mode, the same triplets are shown differently. More about the UX Language is in section 3.9.

2.7.4. Player action

The player formulates an intention: "Help Pyotr find the cow" This action is converted into triplets:

• Ivan -> intention -> help
• Help -> whom -> Pyotr
• Help -> task -> find_cow

The system interprets: 1. Can Ivan help? -> Yes (physically healthy, nearby) 2. Does it take time? -> Yes (~1 hour) 3. Will it affect hunger? -> Yes (it will increase) 4. What will happen? -> Search in the forest, chance to find the cow

2.7.5. Result

After one hour of game time:

• Cow -> location -> found_at_stream
• Ivan -> hunger -> 20% (increased)
• Pyotr -> relation_to_Ivan -> gratitude +10
• Pyotr -> obligation -> help_with_roof

Visually:

• The player sees the animation of returning with the cow
• 🍞 20% (even redder)
• A notification appears: "Pyotr is grateful. He promised to help with the roof."

3.7.1. Limited perception and the need for abstractions

The world of a universal game can contain a huge number of processes: from animal migrations and city growth to microorganism behavior or the dynamics of star systems. A full recalculation of all space and all scales is impossible and unnecessary—the player always perceives the world subjectively and within a limited scope. Therefore, the system uses a layer of abstractions that allows the world to remain scalable without losing logic.

Abstractions are applied where high detail does not affect the gameplay result. In the microworld, at the level of a planet's biosphere or a star system, different entities and rules are used, appropriate to the scale of what is happening. Therefore, the system does not model the behavior of each individual entity, but immediately accounts for the overall result of processes.

3.7.2. Scaling time and space

When fast-forwarding time, the game does not recalculate every skipped moment. Instead, the system analyzes the current state of the world, applies cause-and-effect relationships at an aggregated scale, and interpolates likely results: how the population changes, which trends intensify, which events are most likely to occur. This allows moving forward decades or thousands of years while maintaining world consistency.

Scaling space does not change the structure of the world, but determines the level of entities and processes that the simulation works with. At a large scale, aggregated entities and processes are considered—climate, migrations, political structures. When moving to a local scale, the world opens up to individual entities and their properties. In all cases, a unified logic of cause-and-effect relationships is preserved.

Abstractions allow the game to contain a world of any scale: a village, a planet, an ecosystem, or a galaxy. Details appear only when they become significant to the player or to the logic of events. Everything else is described in a simplified form while preserving cause-and-effect relationships.

The player can delve into the structure of the world, studying entities and navigating their properties like a reference system. The only limitation here is the available data and rules of the world.

3.7.3. Materialization of the world

The world is formed as it is explored. Until the player visits a location, it exists as data and rules without specific objects. Objects materialize only when the player interacts with the world. This is similar to chunk loading in Minecraft: the world is not fully calculated, but is subjectively perceived as already existing.

Events are generated as if the world existed fully in all its complexity, even beyond the player's observation.

After interaction with a location or entities ends, its state is stored as new knowledge about the world and no longer participates in active calculations. This approach allows the world to scale outward and inward—from the microworld to galaxies—without storing and recalculating unnecessary details.

For large time intervals, statistical trends are used. For example, it is known that kilometer-scale asteroids collide with Earth roughly once every million years. There are models that estimate the probability of a technological civilization disappearing on a horizon of thousands of years. These estimates do not set a precise outcome, but determine a range of possible scenarios. Therefore, when the player moves forward a thousand years, the system chooses one of the plausible futures—civilization ruins, stable development, or another coherent scenario.

3.7.4. Online play

In online mode, the same materialization-by-interaction principle is used. The server does not store the world as a fully calculated and fixed map. Instead, it operates on data, rules, and already manifested facts—what has been discovered or changed by players.

When one or more players interact with a single area, the server forms a shared materialized state for it, synchronized among all participants. This state exists exactly at the level of detail at which it is actually observed and used.

Outside the interaction area, the world is not continuously recalculated. It remains in a potential state described by rules, statistical trends, and accumulated facts. This allows maintaining a single, large, continuous world with many players, synchronizing only what is actually observed and relevant to gameplay.

4.2.1. Stage 0. Forming an understanding of the universal game (completed)

The work of Clarus Victoria since 2013, the release of six projects, as well as many years of research, experiments, and prototype creation have made it possible to form a base understanding of what a universal game can be and what principles underlie it. The result of this stage was the creation of this document.

4.2.2. Stage 1. ECS and entity unification (completed)

• The ECS architecture was validated on the Next Run project. Entities are represented as empty containers with a set of components, which allows flexible formation of world objects: items, creatures, biomes, events, and effects.
• A number of ideas related to universal game mechanics were validated, including the combination of RPG and strategy without hard division, universal actions, a model of time flow, and squad control.
• For the first time for the studio, a hexagonal map was implemented and tested, allowing quick creation and combination of different types of game worlds.
• For the first time for the studio, support for modifications via Steam Workshop was added.

More about this stage - in the article: https://clarusvictoria.com/blog/almost-ten-years-of-search

4.2.3. Stage 2. Real-world gameplay (in development)

The Next Run project allowed testing many universal game ideas, but it is limited to a fantasy setting with conditional laws of the world. As part of the second stage, a transition to modeling the real world with its natural and social patterns is expected. The goal of the stage is to lay a realistic gameplay foundation based on the logic of the real world, its natural and social patterns.

Features to implement:

• Evolution of societies: from a primitive human living alongside animals and following the same survival rules, to the emergence of the first civilizations.
• Biomes and tile ecosystems: hunger, migrations, and competition for resources. Plants, animals, and terrain directly affect human survival.
• Game situations and events arising as a result of game rules, not predefined scripts. For example, resource shortages may lead to conflicts between groups of people and attacks by predators.
• Automation of unit actions or manual control—player's choice, including group control through shared behavior rules. Possibility of both active play and observation.
• Ability to play as individual characters or groups.
• Multiple players on one map competing with each other.
• Return of the technology tree familiar from previous Clarus Victoria games.
• Configurable game world: map size, era, climate, and regional features.
• First versions of the agent model.
• Possible world setting: the Stone and Bronze Ages.

4.2.4. Stage 3. Semantic architecture (planned)

One of the key steps to reduce the risks of the Nexus project is the transition to the semantic foundation of the game architecture (see sections 3.3–3.5).

At this stage, all systems are introduced at a basic level, with minimal functionality:

• Semantic triplets as a way to describe entities in the game world.
• Interpreter.
• Transition from classic ECS to semantic ECS.
• Basic rules for the new architecture.
• Possible world setting: one of the early civilizations.

From a gameplay mechanics point of view, no new complexities are expected at this stage. The main task is to transfer already proven solutions and mechanics to the new architectural foundation.

4.2.5. Stage 4. Agent model (planned)

At this stage, it is expected to implement critical systems considered too risky to introduce at Stage 2. This is about deep elaboration of subjects within the agent model. Stage 2 prepares the ground for them, but at Stage 4 agents are fully implemented. The game architecture begins to support more complex real-world processes, allowing modeling of societies with a higher level of complexity compared to Stage 2.

Features to implement:

• A full agent behavior model: entities get goals, states, and motivations.
• A system of requests and commands to subjects, where execution is not guaranteed and depends on the current state and context.
• Increased richness of the world, more complex systems and object logic.
• Individual inventories for subjects, logistics chains, and a transport system.
• Moving part of the game logic out of hardcode into Lua to allow players to create complex mods.
• Possible world setting: the ancient world.

4.2.6. Stage 5. Abstractions and LOD (planned)

Semantic architecture and the growing complexity of game worlds increase the computational requirements of players' devices. At this stage, abstract game rules are expected to be introduced to exclude entities outside players' areas of action from active simulation (see item 3.7). This should allow game worlds to become significantly more complex without proportional growth of load, and also make it possible to run such games on low-end and mobile devices. The order of implementation of stages may be adjusted during development.

4.2.7. Stages 6+. Key functions of the Nexus engine (planned)

Stages 1–5 form the base functionality of Nexus. Starting from stages 6+, development shifts toward expanding engine capabilities, adding scalable features, details, and content described in sections 2 and 3.

At these stages, the following areas are expected to be developed and implemented:

• Scaling time and space, levels of detail and abstractions.
• Network play.
• Generation of game scenarios and configurations.
• Support for different visualization modes: from first-person view to global scale.
• Adaptive interfaces and sound for different play styles and immersion levels.
• Additional functions described in sections 2 and 3.

4.2.8. Nexus 1.0 (planned)

The moment of Nexus 1.0 release is determined by achieving a base implementation of the key ideas and functions described in sections 2 and 3.