The first time you open First Run, there seems to be a lot to do. There is a campus map, several buildings, and plenty of colleagues to talk to. In practice, the first thirty minutes only need a handful of things, done in the right order. Get the order right and you pick up the rhythm of the game without wandering.
This is an order-of-operations guide for first-time players. Reference material such as the screen layout, controls, and map symbols lives in the beginner manual. Here the focus is on what to do first and what can safely wait.
Before You Start: Pick a Role
A new game begins with a role choice: Developer, PMO, Publisher, Planner, or Designer. The role decides which mentor you visit first and what most of your quests will feel like.
- Developer: Alex in the Dev Lab. Expect to read Python, debug, and handle API responses, usually hunting for the cause in a few lines of code.
- PMO: Leo in the PMO Tower. Schedule slips, change requests, and risk reports, where the question is usually what to do first and who needs to hear about it.
- Publisher: Jisoo in the Publishing Studio. Calls about CSS layout, responsive screens, and accessibility.
- Planner: Mina in the Planning House. Turning vague requests into concrete requirements and deciding on information structure and interface copy.
- Designer: Luna in the Design Studio. CTA priority, UI consistency, and visual QA.
You cannot switch roles partway through a run. The safest pick is the job you do now or are about to start. If another discipline interests you, cross-role quests open from Level 3 and let you try it without leaving your own track.
The First Five Minutes
Once you pick a role, the Prologue card appears: a short scene from your first day and a single objective. Find Guide Dan in the Welcome Plaza and clear the first tutorial quest.
Follow the Arrow to Guide Dan
On the map, a yellow arrow sits at the edge of the screen and points toward your next destination, labeled with the NPC name and the distance in tiles. It points to Guide Dan first, then to the home mentor for your role, and after that to the nearest mentor who still has open quests. When the target is on screen, the arrow is replaced by a bouncing marker above their head.
To move, hold the D-pad or tap and swipe the map. On a keyboard, use the arrow keys or WASD. Stand next to a colleague with a ! above their head and press A (Space on a keyboard) to start talking.
The First Tutorial Quest
The first quest from Guide Dan uses the same format as every quest after it: read the situation, choose one of four options, then read the feedback. Once you clear it, the arrow moves on to your role mentor.
Short coach tips appear once each, at the moment they are useful: the first time you explore, your first quest, and your first wrong answer. If you closed one too quickly, you can replay them from the MENU.
How to Read a Quest
Every quest is a situation followed by four options. Jumping straight to the options is the quickest way to miss. Read in this order instead.
- Situation: when it happens, who is involved, and what just went wrong.
- Constraint: whatever narrows your choice, such as a deadline, something already locked, or a person who is waiting on you.
- Question: whether it asks for the first step, the best response, or what to check.
If the question asks for the first step, a correct action taken in the wrong order is still not the best answer. When you are stuck, press the hint button. The hint points at the detail worth looking at instead of giving away the answer, and using it costs you nothing.
The Long, Polite Option
When one option is noticeably longer and more courteous than the others, it looks like the answer. First Run quests are written so that this does not work. An option like sharing the issue with every stakeholder and booking a meeting sounds diligent, but it often postpones the one fact you need to check right now. Choose by whether the option deals with the constraint, not by its length or tone.
Four Grades and What Risky Means
Every answer earns one of four grades: Excellent (3 stars), Good (2 stars), Risky (1 star), or Poor (0 stars).
Risky is not exactly wrong. It is an answer that might work out, but only with luck: it skips something that should have been checked, or it hands the risk to someone else. The feedback names what was skipped, and that is the part worth remembering, more than the grade itself.
After a Miss: The Review Board
A Risky or Poor answer still pays EXP, at least 45% for Risky and at least 25% for Poor. The quest itself stays open and moves to the Review Board.
Mira in the Welcome Plaza runs the Review Board, and the Review Board button at the top of the HUD opens it at any time. Retry a missed quest, answer it Good or better, and it is marked Recovered while some of the mentor trust you lost comes back. Miss the same quest twice and the feedback shifts to a gentler coaching tone.
There is no need to retry right away. Letting two or three misses collect and working through them together makes the feedback easier to compare.
Levels and Area Unlocks
Every level comes with a new title. When an answer takes you over a level, the feedback screen plays a LEVEL UP banner with your new title.
- Level 1: Intern
- Level 2: Associate
- Level 3: Senior Associate
- Level 4: Manager
- Level 5: Senior Manager
- Level 6: Associate Director
- Level 7: Director
New parts of the campus open on level or badge count, whichever you reach first. The badge count here does not include the Director Badge.
- River bridge: Level 3 or 1 badge
- Client district: Level 5 or 3 badges
- Director Hall: Level 6 or 5 badges
To check what is still locked, open the campus map with the map button in the top-right corner of the play area. It shows the whole 48×32 campus at once: your position, NPCs with open quests in yellow, the buildings, and the locked areas.
The story runs across seven chapters, from the Prologue to the Epilogue, and each new chapter opens as your level and badges grow. The run ends when you reach Level 7 or earn the Director Badge, and you get a result report listing your strengths, the areas to work on, and recommended review quests.
Optional Goals: Combos and Achievements
Neither of these is required, but both make the run more fun once you know they exist.
The Combo Streak
Consecutive Good or Excellent answers build a combo. From two in a row you get +10% EXP, and each further answer adds another 10 points, up to a cap of +50% at six in a row. A Risky or Poor answer breaks it. Review Board retries neither add to the combo nor break it. The flame chip in the HUD shows your current count.
Twelve Achievements
The profile screen (Career Dossier) lists twelve achievements. Most come through normal play, but a few are easy to miss unless you look for them.
- Friendly Newcomer: talk to eight different colleagues.
- Campus Explorer: enter four buildings.
- Across the River: cross the river bridge once it opens.
- The Rival's Side: talk to rival PM Kevin in three different chapters. His lines change every chapter.
- Crossing Boundaries: answer three quests from other roles well.
There is no need to rush quests for achievements. Most of them are attached to habits, like looking around the campus and talking to people.
Common Beginner Mistakes
- Sightseeing before meeting your mentor. Early on, following the arrow is faster, and the campus will still be there after your first quest.
- Skipping the feedback. The reasoning in the feedback helps with the next quest more than the grade does.
- Leaving misses alone. Recovering them on the Review Board brings back some mentor trust and still helps you level up.
- Assuming a tap submits on mobile. On touch screens, tapping an option only selects it, and the answer goes in only when you press Lock in this answer.
- Waiting at the locked bridge. It will not open until you meet the condition, so clear the quests that are already open in the meantime.
Your First 30 Minutes Checklist
- Did you pick the role closest to your real job?
- Did you clear the tutorial quest from Guide Dan?
- Did you pick up the first quest from your role mentor?
- Did you read each quest as situation, constraint, then question?
- Did you retry at least one miss on the Review Board?
- Did you open the campus map and check the locked areas?
- Did you replay any skipped coach tips from the MENU?
The goal of the first thirty minutes is not to level up. It is to learn the rhythm of the game: follow the arrow, read the situation to the end, and retry misses on the Review Board. Once those three are habits, the remaining chapters follow naturally. If you get stuck, look up the relevant section in the beginner manual.
Try workplace scenarios as onboarding quests
Picking a role and finding Guide Dan takes about a minute. Play the Onboarding