First Run is a customizable onboarding RPG that helps new hires and project members learn through real workplace scenarios.
Turn passive onboarding documents into interactive decision-making quests.
Onboarding is not just about sharing company documents. It is the process of helping new members understand how the company works, how projects move, and how decisions are made in their role.
Yet many teams still rely on documents, verbal explanations, and repeated meetings. Gallup reports that only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job onboarding new employees. SHRM notes that only 29% of new hires felt prepared and supported to excel in their new role.
That is why First Run turns onboarding from something people read into something they experience.
Teams explain the same company and project context again and again.
Training materials exist, but they are often hard to finish or remember.
New members may not know how to act until they face real situations.
Developers, PMOs, planners, designers, and publishers all need different onboarding paths.
First Run transforms company and project workflows into interactive quests. New members explore an RPG-style office map, meet NPCs, and solve role-based workplace scenarios.
Turn workplace situations into NPC quests.
Provide different learning paths for each role.
Let users make decisions and learn from outcomes.
Build an onboarding game around your company or project.
First Run lets new members join a fictional company, choose a role, meet NPCs, and grow by solving real workplace quests.
Start onboarding as a developer, PMO, publisher, planner, or designer.
Choose an IT company, a semiconductor fab, an apartment construction site, a convenience store or a general hospital, then walk around and meet role-based NPCs.
Make decisions in scenarios such as schedule delays, API issues, requirements, UI decisions, and accessibility problems.
Earn EXP, badges, and trust based on your decisions and unlock the next stage of quests.
Start with your own role, then unlock cross-role quests to build T-shaped growth.
First Run is not a fixed training game. It can be customized around your company, project, team structure, and onboarding goals.
Join one of five maps (an IT company, a semiconductor fab, an apartment construction site, a convenience store or a general hospital), choose a role and solve role-based onboarding quests. Below are the five roles on the IT company map.
Python coding, API parsing, and debugging quests.
Risk handling, schedule coordination, and change control.
Responsive Flex/Grid layouts and accessibility checks.
Requirement analysis, IA menu architecture, and UX copy.
Design tokens, UI consistency checks, and usability rules.
First Run is a browser-based, role-specific onboarding RPG made by Make Feelbetter. New hires and people joining a project walk a virtual workplace, meet mentor NPCs, and make decisions in quests built from real work situations, getting a grade and the reasoning behind it for every answer. Players choose one of five maps (an IT company, a semiconductor fab, an apartment construction site, a convenience store or a general hospital), each with the jobs and situations of its industry. It was designed from the practical experience of a PMP®-certified project manager and can be customized with a company's own scenarios.
New hires, experienced hires and internal or partner staff joining a project. It is usually introduced by HR and L&D teams, PMOs and project leads.
Yes. The demo runs in a web browser with no sign-up or payment, on desktop and mobile.
Instead of recalling facts, players choose what to do first in realistic work situations. Each answer gets one of four grades with the reasoning and a learning point, and missed quests can be retried on the Review Board.
Each map has five jobs. The IT company map has Developer, PMO, Publisher (HTML/CSS), Planner and Designer; the semiconductor fab, apartment construction site, convenience store and general hospital maps have jobs from their own industries. The hospital map, for example, has ward nurse, charge nurse, ER nurse, ICU nurse and OR nurse. From level 3, players can also take other roles' quests to build cross-role understanding.
Yes. A custom version can be built from your real work scenarios and project rules, with NPCs modeled on your mentors, your office map and your branding. Request it through the contact page.
Korean, English, Japanese and Spanish, and the language can be switched at any time inside the game.
It was designed from the experience of a PMP®-certified project manager, but it is not a PMI-affiliated course and does not grant PDUs.
The public demo saves automatically in your browser only, with no account. Clearing browser data or starting a new game resets it.
New convenience store staff get stuck less on the manual than on a short cash drawer, a customer of uncertain age buying alcohol, a fridge running warm and a night shift alone. Judgment scenarios for counter, ordering, display, food and night roles, with the reasons wrong answers fail.
Age checks for alcohol and tobacco waver under a regular's request, a colleague's "obviously an adult", a borrowed ID and a long queue. When to ask, how to check and how to refuse politely, as judgment scenarios for new staff.
First-in, first-out shelving, date checks, waste logs and ordering by weather and promotions all break down on a busy morning and a tedious log. Why skipping a waste log throws off the next order, as judgment scenarios for new staff.
If your team repeats new hire training, project briefings, or partner onboarding, First Run can be customized into an onboarding RPG for your organization.