If you’ve been on ROBLOX in the last few days, chances are you’ve noticed a game called Super Bomb Survival. Since emerging earlier this week, it has sat proudly at or near the top of the Popular games sort, and has been gaining massive popularity among hundreds of thousands of players. The game is highly polished, featuring addicting gameplay, fantastic player interfaces, and awesome power ups that drastically change the way players interact with one another. It’s one of the most organized yet frantic games to hit ROBLOX.

The premise of Super Bomb Survival is simple. You and a group of others are dropped into a map, and bombs and missiles proceed to rain from the sky. The environment is destructible, meaning layers of terrain are wiped out by explosions — to the point that killer lava is eventually unearthed beneath you. As each round plays out, nimble movements and platforming skills become more and more important, but, on the bright side, you do have special abilities you can use to jump insanely high or even create (and kick!) your own bombs. Survive the duration of a round, and you win in-game currency.

“The full game took about three months to develop, from start to finish,” TylerMcBride tells me. “The biggest hurdle was that I’ve never actually made a game like this before. I used the Wiki and asked a lot of other developers for tips. I learned that working on games that are outside of your comfort zone teaches you a lot about game development.”

There’s me being blown away by the power of explosions and ROBLOX physics.

Though TylerMcBride has dabbled in ROBLOX game development, something interesting happened while he was developing this particular game that has never happened to him before. Once the basic gameplay mechanics were developed, he found that it was difficult to keep progressing because the game was already fun to play.

“When I was building the game, I found myself playing it a lot more than I was actually working on it,” he tells me with a laugh.

The game is a blend of interests — TylerMcBride’s fascination with the ROBLOX physics engine, an interest in the “chaos of explosions,” and inspiration from bomb-survival levels featured in games like LittleBigPlanet. Each of these facets are certainly explored in Super Bomb Survival, certainly, but what exactly caused the massive surge in popularity that’s been keeping Super Bomb Survival at the top of the Games page all week?

“I’m not sure what elements have made my game so popular, but if I were to guess, I would say it’s the visual style,” he tells me. “I also designed the game with a ‘losing isn’t bad mentallity.’ You get rewarded even if you lose, but not as much as winners. That way players of all skill levels are motivated to continue playing.”

TylerMcBride went on to cite two ROBLOX features that really helped him shape the game into what it is today: badges and custom audio. He told me badges, or “nice gifts” as he called them, help incentivize players to earn as many as possible by playing as often as possible. There’s also a massive sound library in the game — each bomb and missile has its own custom explosion sounds — and he ended up with over 40+ sounds, all in a quest to distinguish his game from others.

It all comes together for a unique experience, blending classic ROBLOX action with modern-day polish, and TylerMcBride isn’t even close to being finished updating it.

“I was thinking that new types of rounds, like a round where bombs spawn in predefined waves, or a Juggernaut-esque round, would be really cool,” he explains. “I also want to deepen the character customization.”

Only a week old, Super Bomb Survival has been visited well over 300,000 times. TylerMcBride spent his summer crafting a vision of 3D chaos, and is currently stashing the ROBUX he earns to cash out using DevEx next month. We haven’t asked a developer for advice in a while, so here’s his for all those out there looking to replicate his success.

Polish the heck out of your game, and listen to criticism! Taking in feedback can be tough sometimes, but it’s always important to keep the best interests of your players in mind. If you haven’t gotten anything done with your game today, go work on it right now! Even if you do one tiny thing a day, progress adds up!