Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: November 17th, 2013

November 17, 2013

Seven-day blog recap

The big news of the gaming industry might have been the Friday Playstation 4 launch, but, as is always the case, there’s a huge amount of cool stuff happening on ROBLOX. Here’s a look at the last week.

ROBLOX games making money

Every so often, we dig into our database of user-created content and look at the builders and developers who are finding success on ROBLOX, and how they’re doing it. In this article, we look back at the months of September and October to find out what games earned their creators the most ROBUX using any of our game-monetization features: Paid Access, Game Passes and Gear Commissions. To see the top 25 highest-grossing games (and a breakdown of what games do each style of game monetization the best), read through the full article. You might learn a thing or two about what sells in the ROBLOX marketplace and how you can be a future top earner.

Collaborative building in colonial Boston

There are a lot of grand builds on ROBLOX and, while every place falls under one person’s account, many large-scale projects are collaborative efforts. While we originally took note of the City of Boston because of its colonial vibe — from the look to the social interactions that happen within — what’s arguably more interesting is the process a group of six builders around the world used to build the city. If you’re a builder, this is certainly an article worth reading, if only to learn how you can get a collaborative project with your friends off the ground.

Big updates coming soon to Call of ROBLOXia

For the past six months or so, famed developer litozinnamon has been chipping away at the next-gen version of Call of ROBLOXia. With beta access to the new version’s beta now available via Paid Access, we decided to catch up with lito about what the game’s next big update promises. From new maps to amped-up weapons to more attachments and customization, the future of this popular first-person shooter looks brighter than ever.

Even small groups do big things

In this, the third edition of Group Dynamic, Alan joins three small (i.e., less than 1,000 members) groups for a variety of activities, including an epic London Bridge build, intense sword training, and a tense clan battle. The anecdotes are proof that small groups do indeed accomplish big things.

Bright Friday weekend sale

Today, we’re wrapping up the Bright Friday weekend sale. Hopefully, you snagged some sweet items. Take note: with Black Friday quickly approaching, there will be more, and we’ll be looking to you to vote on the sale items! Stay tuned.

Support the Philippines relief effort with ROBLOX hats

Also, don’t forget that you can still help support UNICEF’s Typhoon Haiyan Emergency Response Fund by picking up the Philippines Baseball Cap (15 ROBUX) and/or Carabao Cap (100 ROBUX) through tomorrow morning. We will be donating $.10 for each Baseball Cap sold and $.65 for each Carabao Cap sold.

Rotating GUI support

You might have already noticed, but on Thursday last week we shipped the long-requested support for rotating GUIs. According to Arseny (aka zeuxcg):

GUI objects now have a Rotation property that you can use to rotate the element and all its children — so you can rotate individual elements or frames containing all the content. Note that rotation disables clipping so ClipDescendants won’t work on a child element if it’s rotated.

Rotation is an angle in degrees that specifies clockwise rotation. If you make something cool with this, feel free to post screenshots!

A few developers quickly harnessed the feature; for example, Quenty made a nice-looking compass and Stickmasterluke published a pocket watch model. There will surely be many more examples in the future.

You should play this game

Alan and I are facing off this week. Which game do you think is better?

Andrew’s pick: Wobbly Brickbattle

I can think of four reasons off the top of my head why you should play Wobbly Brickbattle:

It’s a brick battle. Classic, chaotic fun.
It looks great, with an abundance of the new sand, marble and water.
Different parts of the level regenerate from the ground up (nice effect) after they’re annihilated by bombs and rockets.
Your character looks hilarious as it wobbles around the level.

Warning: you might feel a little nauseous after playing. Maelstronomer didn’t name it Wobbly Brickbattle for nothing.

Alan’s Pick: Rome Vs. Sparta

Simple doesn’t always mean bad! Rome Vs. Sparta is ingenious in its simplicity. You spawn as either one of the two warring factions, and charge one another in a clash of steel in the middle of the map. You get a really epic feeling as you and your men charge forward with swords in tow, and it’s not uncommon to see players yell “AHHHHHH!” as they run onto the battlefield. THIS. IS. ROBLOX!

Bits

crazyman32 is working on a terrain saver/loader plugin. Here are a couple demos. Cool!
Zusik has been working to create a replica of “cloth physics” using ROBLOX parts. Here’s a quick video demo.
One more cool demo, this one of a construction animation for an in-development real-time strategy game.
Another engine/framework for ROBLOX games — this one known as SurvivalEngine — has made its way online. Check it out.
The fan art contest submission period ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT! If you’re going to enter, make sure to keep the approaching deadline in mind.
There will not be a Weekly Roundup next weekend. It will be back the following week!

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