Sample audit: the first hour of Wildspire

Scorecard

A quick health check of the player experience. Each area gets a score from 1 to 5, so the team can see at a glance where the first hour is strong and where it loses players.

The first hour, minute by minute

I play the opening hour like a new player would, then watch five first-time players do the same. Every moment of friction gets a timestamp, a severity and a recommendation, so the team can jump straight to it in the recordings.

1. 00:00

   Boot flow Major

   Before the first input, players sit through publisher and studio logos, a health warning and a 40-second intro.

   Recommendation: Keep the screens the studio and platform legally require, such as ratings and health notices, and make everything else skippable after the first launch. Let players press Start during the intro.

2. 03:00

   Settings Critical

   Subtitles are off by default and there's no text size option.

   Recommendation: Turn subtitles on by default, add size and background options, and offer them on the first launch.

3. 06:00

   Movement tutorial Major

   Three tutorial pop-ups pause the game within 90 seconds.

   Recommendation: Replace them with one-line prompts that don't pause the game, and let the level layout do the teaching.

4. 14:00

   First combat Critical

   The parry window has no sound or vibration cue. Four of five players never parried.

   Recommendation: Add a distinct sound and a short controller vibration when the window opens, plus a brief slow-motion beat on the first successful parry.

5. 25:00

   Crafting bench Major

   Wildspire's crafting bench turns gathered wood, ore and herbs into tools and armour. It shows six material types and dozens of recipes at once, and players open it, read the list and leave without crafting anything.

   Recommendation: Introduce one material per milestone and highlight the first recipe the player can already afford, so the first visit ends with a new item.

6. 40:00

   The camp opens Major

   Once the first camp unlocks there's no clear next goal, and players wander for up to eight minutes.

   Recommendation: Show one main objective on the map and in the HUD, with optional goals one button away.

7. 52:00

   Text on TV Minor

   Item descriptions are hard to read from a sofa at 1080p.

   Recommendation: Raise the minimum text size and test at real viewing distance on a TV.

8. 58:00

   Saving and quitting Critical

   Save points are far apart. Players who quit at the end of the hour lose up to 20 minutes of progress.

   Recommendation: Autosave at every milestone and before quitting, and show a clear save icon so players trust it.

Priority plan

Not every fix can ship at once. The priority plan sorts the recommendations by impact on players and effort for the team, so the most damaging problems are fixed first and nothing gets lost.

What I'd suggest now: start with the three critical findings. They're small changes, they affect every new player, and together they remove the main reasons people would stop playing in the first hour.