Weekly Roundup: December 1st, 2013 [Bonus: Contest Winners!]

December 1, 2013

Fan art contest winners, round 1

I know, I’m a week late. You guys submitted a lot of entries — more than I had anticipated — and I simply ran out of time in getting through them all and organizing them into buckets. However, I did finally succeed in the grand review, and we’ve selected our first three of many (on the order of 25 or so) winners!

“Character Adventure”, a fantastic 3D render by brad1342

As stated by creator Lowllipop, “Me and my Roblox character as she excitedly tells me of her adventures.”

“Natural Disaster Survival”, a fan illustration by wonniesoup

We will, in fact, have many more winners to announce in upcoming issues of the Weekly Roundup (and in a photo album on our Facebook page). At the end, we’ll assemble them in one place and show you a bunch of other entries that just missed the cut and are otherwise well done in their own regard.

Congratulations to our first three winners!

Two-week blog recap

Since there was no Roundup last weekend, let’s look back at the most exciting stuff to show up on the blog over the last two weeks.

BLOXcast coming December 7th

Save the date. On December 7th at 10 a.m., we’ll be going live once again for Q&A and exclusive news and announcements. For more information, check out the original announcement or watch the following teaser — and don’t forget to click the link at the end to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss the event!

More behind-the-scenes info on the making of Space Knights

With the first article in our series about the making of Space Knights, Sorcus revealed that it was in fact the Games Team that created the title. He provided a high-level view of the decisions that led the team to cooperative gameplay and a first-hand account of the challenges developers face in getting a game to the top of the Games page. Now, another member of the Games Team, Dan Healy, offers a deeper dive on the development of the game’s aesthetic and gameplay. You’ll learn about establishing a foundation, building a game rather than a tech demo, and keeping players engaged via progression.

Here they come!

New building and scripting tutorials

Four members of our Games Team — all game design and engineering experts — recently recorded themselves demonstrating the features of ROBLOX Studio in various applications. We put these tutorial videos up on our YouTube channel so you can leverage their expertise in your own pursuits. These four tutorials cover the basics of Studio, building structures and vehicles, and scripting. We plan to offer more advanced tutorials in the future, but, in the meantime, these should help you get started with our development kit. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss future tutorials (or all the other stuff we publish there).

Spotlight: SONICTHEHEDGEHOGXX

Our latest Spotlight article shines a light on SONICTHEHEDGEHOGXX, the prolific ROBLOXian responsible for leading F.E.A.R., creating the BLOXY-winning Out of Bloxy Cola, and owning the beautiful Venezia, among other things. With such an impressive resume, we decided to find out what compels SONIC and his experience of rising up through the ranks.

Tips for marketing your game

So, you’ve made a game. Maybe it’s your first attempt. Maybe it’s the first thing you’ve created that you’d deem “acceptable for public consumption.” Maybe it’s the next big thing. Whatever the case, you need to get it in front of people – real, authentic gamers – and, at the very least, collect some feedback. You’re in the right place: ROBLOX has millions of active members, many of which are happy to try something new and eager to discover something great. You just need to capture their attention. In this article, we give you a bunch of ideas for spreading the word.

A movie-series-inspired Crossfire

We give developers a place to create multiplayer games that blur the lines between social and competitive. That said, the concept of The Hunger Games — an annual event where people representing regions battle to survive using smarts and brute force — lends itself well to ROBLOX. With the buzz of the series’ new movie release, a battle between competing Hunger Games-inspired places has been sparked on ROBLOX. We had the competing games’ developers sit down for a chat to discuss the merits of their respective games, and the reasons behind their design decisions.

You should play this game

Andrew’s pick: ROBLOX Adventure: The Rise of Nobeesi

My recent retro gaming stint (see Friday’s blog post about what the admins are playing in their spare time) has crossed over to ROBLOX, if only for a week. I recently stumbled upon TylerMcBride’s backlog of adventure games and found myself having a great time in his ROBLOX Adventure: The Rise of Nobeesi. The game is very much reminiscent of Super Mario 64 in that the primary game mechanic is 3D platforming, but the simplified controls and swordfighting elements give it the ROBLOX charm. This is a game that’s more focused on fun levels and platforming than aesthetic beauty, and it keeps you hooked — you want to get just one more token.

Alan’s pick: Final Silence

Final Silence is an FPS game that is currently in alpha. One aspect of the game makes it stand out from your typical FPS: many areas of any given map are cloaked in darkness, and you have to use night-vision goggles to get a sense of where you and your enemies are. Final Silence also features a gamut of weapons that you can earn as you continue to gather XP. With custom sounds and intuitive controls, I can’t wait to see where this goes. Scriptulus is certainly off to a great start!

Bits

Bauer102 has released a terrain-generation algorithm that uses parts. This might prove useful if you’re looking for procedurally generated maps.
An interesting post on the ROBLOX subreddit about how developer Ozzypig earned somewhere around 100,000 ROBUX in a day in The Hunger Games by Ozzypig.
To follow up on a bit from the last Roundup, jobro13’s SurvivalEngine has been completed and is available as a foundation for other developers.
Interesting industry observation: sales of digital games have surpassed sales of games on physical media. You’re in the right place.

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