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FTUE: Dawnbringer
Key insights
6 takeaways- 01Kiloo’s Dawnbringer demonstrates that even experienced publishers can fail if complex mechanics, such as Infinity Blade-inspired combat, are not introduced with sufficient clarity.
- 02Unintuitive control schemes, specifically those requiring complex camera manipulation and movement, must be explicitly and clearly communicated to the player during the onboarding phase.
- 03Combat systems that lack clear visual cues for timing—such as parry windows—can make gameplay feel opaque and unfair rather than challenging.
- 04The first ten minutes of gameplay are critical for player retention, as a poor initial experience creates an immediate barrier that discourages long-term engagement.
- 05Presenting players with mechanically superior enemies in the first encounter without supportive feedback or power-ups leads to frustration and early churn.
- 06Effective FTUE design must balance the game's difficulty curve to ensure players feel empowered and motivated rather than alienated by an overly steep learning phase.
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Transcript
hello and welcome to Pocket Gamer top is his youtube channel I'm John Jordan and this is our first time user experience playlist so as you can see we're playing dawn ringer so it's just tap to play we won't log into Facebook so dawn bringer is published by key Lou games so q is most famous for being the publisher and co-developer of subway surfers so since the big success of that game it's but if you go into this home but got more involved in publishing so this is a published game from a new developer another Danish develop so let me skip this coming so I'm not a big fan of videos you can't skip at least this one is kind of good quality and at least it's not going through some incredibly
laborious RPG backstory although obviously this is a back story that there's some angels who have fallen to earth and they don't like each other very much okay so going to learn how to parry the attack so this game is a sore best game in the sense that infinity blade was simply both of the big Albert I can't believe it was the big kind of game that came out with this kind of Oh big kind of wet blade stuff and it's all a bit it's kind of almost like a rhythm action really oh yeah I get it udyr oh you're bad your goody-goody brother wow there's the twist in the tail tap again to skip
right okay so if any blade was didn't have any movement so that we move this is more kind of open-ended something see here tap to run so not quite a what I'm tapping and we're just tapping okay so it's just automatic okay tap front out to stop okay listen there's an odd control scheme isn't it so the right all right okay well so I'm controlling the camera here that's very odd okay so i have actually got it I kind of okay so I tap to stop and start and then I move the camera to
kind of move him around alright so that wasn't made very clear probably I haven't found as many testers as stupid as me but there are people students me in the world hard hard to believe so that's a bit of an odd thing so here's our first enemy little demon D thing not rap is eating a wee bit for breakfast ok defeat the demon into the circle to fight ok so don't have to do this so here we go fury so I'm trying to this is not as easy I can't see where it's booting thing is I can't see where I'm pairing it and this is just not a good looks very iPad one good so kind of the point of this kind of game is you're trying to see where they're hitting to parry it but it's quite difficult to see where he's pairing is he's hitting hi
I'm gonna lose it Li limited more I'm gonna lose it I he's got he's much stronger than me ok ok this is odd I've got any Paris right so basically I'm having a really not very good experience so I'm fighting someone who's better than me and this is the first bit of the game and let me now do it and it's not helping me when I get blanks so I've got me like twice as good as him am i hitting him harder I don't even get like a magical powerup if I'm game whooped okay that's good at least but you can make at some point in these kind
of games this is your first boss lady first pop out your first battle so you're feeling like really rubbish that your skin would just go oh you're going back to lose and then you just some personal in saves you will you get a big power and drop a smart but want anymore just mention Toby's it off or I'm gonna lose again so this is that going to help me now defeat tubs continue okay well I don't we know what more to say about um about this game um I walked into a big a big bit of rock and got stuck there and then I can't defeat the first boss maybe copies are not very good at the game I'm not I'm not talented that's not that's to be expected because I'm not this is the first time I've been playing it not only that the boss is actually stronger than me so I've got to be better
it doesn't even like if I parried it he doesn't you can I think something if you got Perry then you should be able to get a few attacks in a bit better I suppose but it's very hard to parry that that one he puts across this son another thing is with this kind of game where it is you kind of learn how to do stuff you should should really be pointing stuff out a bit more to you Elizabeth making a bit easier and then as the game goes on as you fight bigger bosses I cannot to make the timings harder yeah okay so there we go I'm really odd really odd particularly for a conniving particular for a game that comes from a publisher whose game is subway surfers which is Lee most casual game in the
world to have this froni you mean obviously not the same audience you shouldn't think you know some crossover but not particularly was that one day yeah just very odd to have a really bad experience helped with a first time user experiences whole point of onboarding people is you have a really good experience for the first 10 minutes and then you know it gets the game it's hard eight games are not all about winning everything all the time because I think very boring in the long term but the first time you do them it should play civ you all about winning stuff or if you lose stuff it should be in the context of you lost this because here's some story to kind of get you deeper into the game this is just yeah very odd very odd but at this stage in mobile game development and from an experienced publisher to have that so um so the opposite of full marks for dawn bringer and thanks for watching don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so we do a lot of this first-time user experience and which i think is useful
for you know I find it useful to play and I think it is sometimes you have a really good user experience and the games in there not very good and sometimes you may be like here really bad first time user experience and maybe the game are we really good up oh no officer ironically I won't ever know because no one play it again because it's putting more games to play and i think that the kind of take away for developers is really have to focus on your on your first time you experience your tutorial your onboarding however you want to describe it needs to be obviously somebody fun in some degree interesting some degree asking players to come back again tomorrow or in an hour's time or suchlike okay anyway
Summary
The mobile action game Dawnbringer, published by Kiloo, serves as a case study for the critical importance of effective onboarding and first-time user experience (FTUE) design. Despite the publisher’s pedigree with highly accessible titles like Subway Surfers, this particular project adopts a complex, Infinity Blade-inspired combat mechanic that fails to provide a smooth introduction for new players. The game’s narrative setup involves a conflict between fallen angels, but the primary focus remains on the mechanical execution of parrying and movement, which are presented with insufficient clarity or instructional guidance.
The core issue identified is a significant disconnect between the game’s difficulty curve and the player’s initial learning phase. The control scheme, which requires players to tap to move and manipulate the camera to navigate, is described as unintuitive and poorly communicated. Furthermore, the first combat encounter features an enemy that is mechanically superior to the player, leading to repeated failure without the supportive feedback, power-ups, or narrative justification typically used to mitigate frustration in early-game tutorials. The lack of visual cues for parry timing makes the combat feel opaque rather than challenging.
The analysis concludes that failing to provide a rewarding or accessible experience during the first ten minutes of gameplay poses a severe risk to player retention. Regardless of the potential quality of the game’s later stages, a poor FTUE creates an immediate barrier to entry that discourages continued engagement. Developers are encouraged to prioritize onboarding that balances challenge with success, ensuring that players feel empowered and motivated to return rather than alienated by an overly difficult or poorly explained introduction.
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