Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: November 10th, 2013

November 10, 2013

Seven-day blog recap

We made Space Knights

And in this article, Sorcus explains why the Games Team did it under the guise of RaceToTheBottom.

Space Knights is a cooperative game, where players join forces to defend their energy core from increasingly dangerous waves of angry blocks. On top of that, it was an experiment for several members of our Games Team to learn exactly what it’s like to create a successful game from your perspective.

DevEx success stories

It wasn’t long after the release of DevEx — also known as the Developers Exchange — that some of ROBLOX’s most talented game developers started trading the virtual currency they’ve accumulated for real-world cash. We reached out to the earliest of DevEx adopters in search of interesting stories as to how they’ve invested their new source of income. From putting the money toward insurance and school to, well, a replenished NERF arsenal, these five DevEx success stories cover a whole range of choices.

What happens when you press play, version 2.0

More than a year ago, we published an article explaining all the things that happen invisibly when you press the Play button on a ROBLOX game. Since then, our Web and Operations Teams have been working hard to make those things more efficient and faster. In this article, Vlad discusses the key areas of improvement over the last few months, and how we tested and implemented them without anyone really knowing! If you’re interested in cloud-gaming and large-scale server technology, it’s worth a read.

ROBLOX + school = A

What you can do on ROBLOX is limited only by your imagination. So, with school back in session, we decided to find out how our community is using ROBLOX not to make games, but to complete school projects and assignments. The answers to our poll covered building, programming, physics and more. In this article, we share four builders’ stories of how they used ROBLOX to ace their schoolwork.

A new fan art contest

Yesterday, we kicked off a new fan art contest, giving all you graphic designers and art-inclined ROBLOXians an opportunity to make your mark on the community. For the simple instructions on how to enter and a few ideas to get your imagination churning, see yesterday’s announcement!

Using lights and sounds to create tension

In 2013, ROBLOX developers have gotten two tools that are of paramount importance when creating atmospheric tension: dynamic lighting/shadows and uploadable sounds. One developer who’s leveraged both features is Dapale, the creator of Sanatorium. He penned a Developer’s Journal explaining his process and offering useful advice for other people looking to break into the horror genre.

Material texture update

We received a tremendous amount of valuable feedback on our announcement of the new and updated material textures a couple weeks ago. We’ve already started tweaking the textures based on common themes — last week, we replaced the diamond-plated Corroded Metal with a flatter Corroded Metal texture. If you’ve played any games using Corroded Metal, you’ve probably already noticed this change. We’ll be making a couple more tweaks in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

You should play this game

I don’t think I can explain Bawxing any better than its creator, sellethore:

Abusing the ROBLOXian boundaries and physics, the bawx is one of the fastest transportation tools in Roblox. Not only is it fast, it’s also loads of fun! Bawxes are space-time anomalies present within the ROBLOX universe. Bawxes cannot be fully mastered and controlled, and are only vaguely understood.

In other words, you jump in a cube and race around a lake with reckless abandon while trying to destroy other players. Mostly luck, a little skill, lots of entertainment.

I’ll be honest with you: I just love flying the planes in Bloxborne. Crazyman32 is known for them, and in this game you can see why. There are other vehicles and objectives — in general, you want to control the capture points scattered around the wide-open map — but something about the open-air dogfights feels just right.

Bits

um3k has added badges and player classes (and enabled streaming for better performance) to the freeform and large-scale Zombiesdale.
Check out this desktop wallpaper featuring the Bloxikins given away as quest rewards in The Witching Hour! Adorable.

And finally, it’s time for videos! Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get this kind of content delivered straight to your feed as soon as it’s published.

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