Feeling nostalgic after posting an article about popular console and arcade titles re-imagined in ROBLOX, we got to wondering: What are some of our very own software engineers’ favorite games on ROBLOX? We asked four members of the Content team and, in spite of spending hours every day in close proximity, they all had very different responses.
Paintball! by daxter33
Paintball! is consistently among the front-running games on ROBLOX, and for good reason: it’s responsive and intuitive. The game simulates real paintballs, which, unlike traditional shots in first-person shooters, lose momentum and fall to the ground as they would in the real world. This adds a challenge to hitting targets, especially across long distances. Plus, the weapons are so responsive that Zach Lindblad, who chose Paintball!, describes them as “as close to a retail game I’ve seen” in ROBLOX.
There’s not only a wealth of Paintball! maps, but also gameplay styles. According to Zach, “there’s one mode where, if you get shot, you become a member of the opposite team, until eventually, it’s ten on one. You just don’t get to see that in many other games.”
“Whenever I’m telling someone about ROBLOX, that’s the first game I tell them to play.”
Swamp Quest by nooooooo
Swamp Quest seems like your average obstacle course-style game, where you navigate a dangerous, toxic swamp and do whatever it takes to avoid traps. While it’s simple in its design, according to Tyler Mullen, it sets itself apart from the competition by being consistently well designed. For example, the game’s color palette and setting create a believable, swamp-like atmosphere; rolling hills form natural walls to the world; and there aren’t any immersion-breaking holes or glitches in the environment.
You’ve more than likely experienced the basic running and jumping movements of Swamp Quest before, but the little details keep these basic mechanics exciting, if not unnerving. Bridge planks crack beneath your feet, a zip-line ride — you can see the line in the screenshot above — brings you to the game’s final challenges, swamp-things even take unsuspecting players underwater.
“You’re walking along, and all of the sudden you just see your shoes,” Tyler said, in reference to the swamp things. “It’s those little details that really make the game.”
Tilt by tbradm
Imagine holding a board in your hand. The board has a grid of tracks carved into its surface. You can slot “pegs” into the tracks and tilting the board causes them to slide from side to side. If that board was in ROBLOX, you’d have the foundation of Tilt.
The idea is to tilt the board so that all the green pegs make it into the hole. It starts out easy, but eventually you have to deal with pegs of other colors, which can’t fall into the hole, and obstacles blocking the obvious path. It’s rewarding to figure out the solution to each puzzle.
According to Dan Healy, who picked Tilt out of the millions of others, Tilt is interesting because one wrong move doesn’t always mean you have to start over. “Tilt never feels that way. In almost all the puzzles I played, I kind of discovered the solution as I was playing. You’ve got to do a lot of tinkering.”
RO-Quake by ROBLOX
RO-Quake is Quake III/Quake Live’s DM17 (Longest Yard) map, recreated in ROBLOX. While we originally created it for network testing, as the Quake series is known for its fast-paced, online play, it holds up as a fun diversion and an example of the ROBLOX engine running efficiently. The game features models and styles lifted from Quake III; even the weapons, such as miniguns, feature moving parts and leave bullet holes in the walls.
“As an engineer, I really respect what the developers were able to do with this game, particularly in regard to the jump pads,” says Kip Turner. “They’ve been tuned to jump you just the right distance, which is harder to do than you may think.”