Gerardo Rodriguez Montoya – Senior QA Tester
Forgotten Runiverse is a huge pixel art MMORPG with NFT elements embedded in it with a rich lore at its core fueling its development. Yes it’s about the adventure but also about owning it.
This case study tells the story of how our QA team overhauled the initial steps of the player journey to transform a slow-paced introduction into a dynamic, highly engaging experience.
The Challenge
Following one of our major updates, telemetry data revealed that a significant portion of new players were abandoning the game within their first few minutes. The initial First-Time User Experience (FTUE) was passive, heavily reliant on walls of text, and forced players to complete a single “fetch quest” that consisted solely of walking around the starting encampment, failing to showcase the game’s core appeal.
These early interactions focused on talking to NPCs who guided the player through various workstations and text-heavy explanations. Because these mechanics lacked active player engagement, the game felt more like a list of chores than an epic adventure. Only after completing this tedious loop was the player granted their first real quest and allowed to explore the world on their own.
Key Criteria
The new FTUE had to be dynamic, intuitive, and deeply engaging without increasing the development budget. It needed to seamlessly teach essential mechanics, such as movement, equipment crafting, spell usage, and combat, while establishing a powerful narrative hook to boost Day 1 retention.
During our brainstorming sessions, one core question emerged:
- How can we make players feel like an integral part of this living world right from the very first second?
- What if, instead of a slow tour, the FTUE felt like an urgent crisis that immediately validated the player’s presence in the world?
The Solution
The answer to our challenge lay in a fundamental game design principle: Conveyance.
The art of wordlessly communicating mechanics, rules, and direction through level design, visual cues, and environmental feedback rather than text-heavy tutorials.
Driven by this concept, the QA team pitched a fresh idea…
What if we teach the player how to play during an active emergency, and then subject them to an unwinnable fight? This would instill a personal desire for “revenge,” giving them a compelling reason to grow stronger as they progress through the game.
The New Player Journey
The Inciting Incident: Upon entering the game, players drop right into the middle of an encampment under attack. Local NPCs urgently call for help, guiding the player to nearby workstations to forge the gear needed to fight back.
Active Learning Through Conveyance: Instead of reading text panels, players learn core mechanics organically under pressure:
- Crafting & Gear Tiers: Players craft their starting gear to meet the immediate threat.
- Role Selection: Players choose their starting magic by answering how they want to fight (defining their path as a Healer, Physical/Magical DPS, or Tank).
- Combat & Party Dynamics: Players fight alongside AI wizards, experiencing firsthand the high-level spells and abilities they can unlock later in the game.
The Unwinnable Boss Encounter & The “Revenge Hook”: After mastering the basics, the player reaches the center of the chaos, where the encampment leaders, Alberto and George, are battling one of the game’s main bosses. The leaders ask for the player’s help, but despite their best efforts, the Level 1 player is quickly defeated while the leaders hold the line.
The player respawns safely back at the encampment to receive their official starting quests and enter the open world. This was the turning point of our conveyance approach: the player learned how to play while being subtly reminded that they are just a Level 1 adventurer in a vast, dangerous world. More importantly, it planted the seed of revenge, giving them a clear, self-motivated goal to level up, farm resources, and seek out that boss once more.
Results
The Player retention rate increased significantly after the update with the new FTUE was released. And as a side effect, veteran Players created new characters to experience the beginning of the adventure from a new perspective.
The whole progression of the story felt more congruent with this new approach, as it gave the feeling that the Player was part of a living experience, and besides the intended Rumors/Quests that were part of the story, the subjective need to find the Boss and defeat them persisted in the Players making them consistently pursue level growth and focus in farming and build creation to be prepared for the upcoming challenges in their adventure.
Great game design it’s about empowering Players to learn through play. By embracing conveyance, we transformed a tutorial from a mandatory barrier into the first steps of a fun, unforgettable adventure.
