Devlog 02:

Hey.

So, yeah—this is the first real update log for Pre-Nexus Trials. I'm not really sure how to write this kind of thing the “right” way, but I figured I’d speak from where I’m at.

It’s just me working on this. No team, no company. Just me and my old machine, slowly building this thing one piece at a time. I’m doing what I can, when I can. And I’m finally at a point where you can actually download the game and play it. It's not perfect—but it’s playable.

I’ve been doing all this on my own, using a 2008 GPU—yeah, I’m not even joking. It's not the smoothest ride, but it's what I've got, and I'm making it work. Slowly but surely.

Anyway, let's talk about the new stuff.

So the inventory system. It’s gone through a bunch of changes honestly, and it definitely looks way better now than when I first started. I had to make my own UI icons and do all the little visual polish myself. And even though it’s not final-final, I’m happy with the vibe so far. It’s clean, it glows a little—not too much. I didn’t want that loud color splash and stuff. Just a soft glow that makes it look slick but not in your face.

Then I added the exo-shield generators—basically your armor system. Right now there are three tiers:

• Blue is Tier 1,

• Red is Tier 2,

• Purple is Tier 3.

Each one has a different capacity. Like Tier 1 gives you two bars, Tier 2 gives three, and Tier 3 gives you four. Super simple for now. But eventually, they’ll have more differences—like extra effects, resistances, or things you can upgrade into later on. So don’t think it’s just a bar limit forever.

I also threw in a sound cue for when you lose armor. There's no UI at the top of your screen showing health or shield bars, and that’s actually kinda intentional. I’ll get to why in a second.

But yeah, that's pretty much the core of the update right now that needed to happen moving forward.

 So… Why No Health or Shield UI?

You might be wondering why there’s no health bar or shield bar anywhere on-screen. And to be honest—I don’t really know what my full direction is in terms of that kind of display stuff yet.

But here’s the idea I’m working with right now: My objective is to make the game experience feel more immersive, right? I feel like adding UI for ammo, health, shield, etc. kinda places it in the same category as every other FPS. And maybe more importantly, it kind of takes away from the feeling.

Realistically, you wouldn’t always know exactly how much ammo you have left unless you’re counting. I get it—this is a futuristic game, so people might assume there’s a visor or whatever. But instead of a HUD floating on your screen, I’m thinking of doing it more like Advanced Warfare, where the ammo is shown on the weapon itself. Something that feels like it belongs in the world, not on top of it.

Same with armor. My idea is to eventually include an AI—think like a “Jarvis” kind of assistant—where you can check in on your health or shields if you want, and it’ll tell you. So instead of this big status bar always showing, it’s more situational. You’ll know when you need to know.

Again—this is just the idea right now.
I haven’t locked anything in. I want to hear what you think about this before I move forward on it. So yeah—if you have feedback, I want to hear it.

Alright, so let’s talk inventory.

Now, if you’ve been playing shooters for a while, you’re probably used to the usual—two guns, maybe a few gadgets, and that’s it. Games like Call of Duty, Apex Legends, and even Fortnite, all kind of follow that same formula. You’ve got strict limits on what you can carry, and while that works for fast-paced battle royales or arena shooters, it’s also kind of... predictable, you know?

I didn’t want that.

What I’m building is more survival than it is competitive. More Rust, less Apex. In Rust, you’ve got that freedom—carry what you want, stack it how you want, but space is king. You want to be a walking arsenal? Cool, but now you’re managing five types of ammo, less room for meds, no shields. Or maybe you’re more of a support type—you keep your loadout light and stack health items so you can keep your squad alive. You can even skip guns and go full grenade goblin and just fill your bag with nothing but boom(grenades coming soon). It really depends on how you want to play.

The system I’ve built is block-based, kind of inspired by older survival games like Resident Evil 5. That game hit me deep because I played it with my brother. We’d share weapons, cover each other, swap items mid-fight. It made the inventory feel like part of the experience—not just a menu you ignore until it’s full.

So yeah, I kept that spirit. 31 blocks. That’s it. You do what you want with them.

You want to carry five guns? Do it. You’ll need five types of ammo though. You want to stack health and grenades and run a hit-and-run style? That’s cool too. Nobody’s holding your hand. And if you’re wild enough, you can go full DOOM Slayer—pack every gun and just switch weapons mid-fight like a maniac. There’s room for that. But again—space costs survival.

What I like about this approach is that it lives somewhere between the retro and the modern. It has that old-school weight of choice like in Resident Evil, but also that freedom you get in sandbox games like Rust or even Escape from Tarkov. You’re not locked into a role, you build your role.

This game is a dog-eat-dog world. There are no squads right now. It’s just you—your loadout, your instinct, your planning. Your inventory is your lifeline. And if you mess with it right, you can really express your playstyle through how you carry your gear.

🧠 Why I'm Taking It Slow

I'm taking my time with this. I don’t want to pour everything into something and find out people don’t really care for it. So I’m putting it out bit by bit. Sharing updates. Letting people try it. If people find bugs? Good. That means they’re actually engaging with it. That means something’s happening.

I want people to feel like this is our project—not just mine. Like, “Yo, I’ve been here since the early days.”

So yeah... that’s where I’m at. The build is ready. Server’s live. You can test it out if you want to. All I ask is, tell me what breaks. Tell me what feels off. That helps more than you think.