Every week, we’re busy telling the stories behind our platform, our technology and our place in the gaming and technology industries. For those of you who catch up with ROBLOX over the weekend, the Weekly ROBLOX Roundup collects the best stuff to hit our various avenues of publication in the last week. This time: a fancy new logo, our CEO’s look back at 2012 and forward to the new year, ROBLOX Mobile in the press, Nytraulics’ development of a top-down shooter, blog stories of the year, the Elite Builders of ROBLOXia, Choices by GollyGreg and more. Welcome to 2013.

Seven-day Blog Recap

Since we skipped last week’s roundup in lieu of the holidays, this recap covers a little more than seven days. On the bright side, things were relatively quiet at ROBLOX HQ during the break, so we don’t have too much catching up to do.

A look back at 2012, and plans for the new year

ROBLOX CEO David Baszucki wrote a letter to each of you, the members of the ROBLOX community, to reflect on how much changed in 2012 and, more importantly, what we have in store for 2013. He touches on things like improving the ROBLOX Studio experience so that everyone can access our building features, creating a core building application that combines features from other building environments, expanding our mobile distribution and continuing to enhance our technology. If you haven’t already read the letter, I highly recommend you do so. It’s a great insight into what you’ve done and what we hope you can do in the near future.

Nytraulics and his development of a top-down shooter

ROBLOX user Nytraulics is working with Redditor to develop something that is not often seen in ROBLOX: a top-down shooter that’s not unlike the types of fast-paced, dual-joystick shooters that are popular on console and handheld/mobile devices. The action is frantic and the controls and character movement are highly responsive. In this, our latest Spotlight article, Nytraulics describes his methods for manipulating the ROBLOX camera and his ambitious plans for fleshing out the game.

The press responds to ROBLOX Mobile

ROBLOX Mobile has been out for a few weeks, at this point. It’s made its way through the hands of several gaming and technology writers, who’ve provided their perspective of the iOS app. In this article, we round up some of the most interesting articles, which come from such outlets as Forbes, Massively and Mac|Life. If you aren’t convinced about ROBLOX Mobile, perhaps these stories will sell you.

Behind the scenes with the Elite Builders of ROBLOX

I’ve long been interested in the ROBLOX building scene, but nothing piqued my interest as much as my first visit into the sprawling Block Town. After seeing that, I knew I wanted to dive into the minds of its creators, the Elite Builders of ROBLOX. I spoke with two leaders of the group, past and present, as well as a user making his run at joining the group with a recently finished showcase place. Read the article for some insight into how the group operates and how they’re pushing ROBLOX building to new levels of excellence.

ROBLOX stories of the year

We blog publishers and social media mavens took our own look back at the year that was 2012 to find out what, across the whole year, really resonated with the ROBLOX community. Check out the story to see what articles drew the most traffic, how much content was posted to the blog, and a recap of the milestone articles we posted.

Holiday stories

Sure, it’s a little late now. But if you just can’t accept that the holidays are gone, school’s back in session and there’s less candy in your diet, you can attempt to relive the excitement via these blog articles:

• The holiday spirit spreads through ROBLOX
• The ROBLOX Client Team’s holiday gaming picks

You should play this ROBLOX game

Fire up Choices and the first two minutes are like a walk in the park: answer some simple questions (which is not to say the AI cares what you say), then jump a few spike pits. As you enter the first enclosed area, though, the game slides from 2D sidescroller to 3D cavern-explorer, where water kills you and the jumps are suddenly very difficult. Choices is unique for a few reasons: it continues to transition between 2D and 3D game play, it’s quite difficult, and there’s an eerie AI asking questions and attempting to manipulate you as you play. Go into this one with some time to spare. The path to the goal is not as easy as it at first seems.

According to the game’s creator, GollyGreg, the meaning of the game is up to you. I haven’t made it all the way through, so I haven’t drawn conclusions yet. Maybe you will.

Bits

• The always-active user crazyman32 has debuted another creation, this time a Terrain Saver and Loader plug-in. He’s also posted a video demo of the plug-in, which you can watch here. The plug-in essentially lets you efficiently port terrain from one place to another.
• ROBLOX’s new VP of Marketing and Brand Experience, Brad Justus, recently posted to the Suggestions & Ideas forum about our plans to interact more with you and other users. If you have feedback and ideas for us, it’s worth taking a moment to read.
• Gamasutra editors and writers contribute their predictions for the gaming industry in 2013, if you’re into that kind of thing