game design leaderboard audit
Audit game leaderboards for stagnation, unfairness, and engagement gaps to ensure they drive player retention.
$5
Works with the AI tools you already use
Claude Code
Cursor
Codex CLI
Muse
Dots+22 moreClaude CodeCursorCodex CLIMuseDots
OpenClaw
Manus
Grok
Grok Bot+18 agentsgame design leaderboard audit
Example session with this skill installed
Audit our new 'Galactic Arena' leaderboard. It's a global lifetime cumulative score board with no resets. Only the top 10 players get a unique badge. Currently has 50k active players.
- Read your context and instructions
- Compiled the game design leaderboard
- Generated the UI component
The audit of the Galactic Arena leaderboard reveals a high risk of player churn due to structural stagnation and scale blindness.
Leaderboard Audit: Galactic Arena
Audit Target
- System: Global Cumulative Leaderboard
- Metric: Lifetime Score
- Scale: 50,000 players
- Rewards: Top 10 only (Badges)
Stagnation
- Verdict: Dead
Findings: Because the score is lifetime cumulative with no reset, new players can never catch up to day-one veterans. The board is effectively frozen for anyone joining after the first month.
Scale
Findings: "Position 24,500" carries zero emotional weight. Global scope without "neighborhood" views makes the individual player feel like a rounding error.
Goal Density
| Goal tier | Present | Strength | Main gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Immediate | No | None | No visible neighbors to overtake |
| Short-term | No | None | No intermediate brackets or milestones |
| Medium-term | No | None | No league promotions or round resets |
| Long-term | Yes | Weak | Top 10 is impossible for 99.9% of users |
Motivation & Rewards
- Balance: Extrinsic-heavy but inaccessible.
Coverage:
Too narrow. Rewarding only 0.02% of the population (top 10 of 50k) signal to the other 49,990 players that their effort is ignored.
Failure Patterns
- Stagnant Board: Lifetime accumulation creates a permanent head-start advantage.
- Scale Blindness: Large global numbers lack personal relevance.
- Reward Desert: The vast majority of participants finish with nothing.
- Global Vanity Board: It functions as a hall of fame, not a competitive engine.
Recommendations
Implement Seasonal Resets: Move to a "Season Score" to allow new players to compete on equal footing every 30 days. (Priority:
Critical)
2.
Introduce Grouped Brackets: Break the 50k pool into "Rooms" of 100 players of similar skill. Being #4 of 100 is more motivating than #24,000 of 50,000. (Priority:
Important)
3.
Expand Reward Brackets: Add percentage-based tiers (e.g., Top 10%, Top 25%) so players have reachable milestones. (Priority:
Important)
Next steps
- Define the duration for the first competitive season.
- Design the logic for "Neighborhood" views (Player +/- 5 ranks).
- Establish resource-based rewards for mid-tier brackets.
game-design-leaderboard-audit.tsx
TSX · React component
Example file from a real run - the skill writes it into your workspace.
Connects securely to your tools. The creator never sees your data.
What you get
About this skill
The problem
Most leaderboards act as static monuments that only engage the top 1% of players. When rankings feel frozen or rewards are unreachable, the majority of your player base stops checking the feature, killing long-term retention and competitive drive.
What it does
- Evaluates score granularity and reset mechanics to detect stagnation and "untouchable" veteran advantages.
- Analyzes scale and group composition to ensure position numbers feel emotionally meaningful to average players.
- Audits goal density across immediate, short-term, and long-term time scales to maintain player momentum.
- Identifies psychological anti-patterns like "Whale Capture," "Sandbagging Loops," and "The Empty Summit."
- Reviews reward bracket distribution to balance prestige with participation incentives.
Why this beats prompting it yourself
General AI often treats leaderboards as simple UI elements or sorted lists. This skill applies specific game design frameworks to treat leaderboards as metagame systems. It forces an analysis of player psychology and mathematical fairness that standard prompts overlook.
Use cases
- Reviewing a new league system design before technical implementation starts.
- Diagnosing why an existing global leaderboard has low engagement or "stale" rankings.
- Balancing reward tiers for a seasonal battle pass or competitive event.
- Solving the "elder player" problem where top-tier users have no remaining goals.
How to install
Works the same in every agent - Claude, Cursor, Codex, Copilot and 20+ more.
- 1
Download the ZIP
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- 2
Unzip into your skills folder
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- 3
Ask your agent to use it
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