Every week, we’re busy telling the stories behind our platform, our technology and our place in the gaming and technology industries. For those of you who catch up with ROBLOX over the weekend, the Weekly ROBLOX Roundup collects the best stuff to hit our various avenues of publication in the last week. This time: our weekend tax holiday, the upcoming ROBLOX Film Festival, our conversation with talented builder asimo3089, a look at the games and places that are making money effectively, exclusive hats with ROBLOX cards, Strobe, and other bits and pieces. Enjoy.

Seven-day Blog Recap

Take advantage of the tax holiday while it lasts

This weekend, in celebration of Tax Day — you know, the deadline for Americans to file their 2012 taxes, which is not something most people celebrate — we’re holding a “tax holiday” on ROBLOX. What’s that mean? If you’re a wheeler and dealer, this weekend is an optimal time to sell and/or trade items. Limited items are typically quite costly, so this could save you some big time Robux. The cut also applies to group store sales, game pass sales, and sales of all types of clothing. (Currency transactions, as always, are not subject to a marketplace fee.) Point is, if you’re looking to sell and/or trade, now is the time. Take advantage of it before the holiday ends!

ROBLOX’s worldwide film festival is coming to BLOXcon

Yesterday, we announced the ROBLOX Film Festival. The event will be held at each BLOXcon — Chicago, London and New York City — and feature the cinematic brilliance of ROBLOX builders. We haven’t opened the doors to submissions just yet, but we want you to start thinking about your video and how you can make it as good as possible. After all, you’re pursuing a screening in front of a live BLOXcon audience and a coveted BLOXY Award. The competition will be stiff. Time to put on your director’s hat. (Whatever that is. Maybe a beret?)

In related BLOXcon news, both BLOXcon NYC and BLOXcon Chicago are now 100% sold out. Congratulations to everyone who was able to get a pass. BLOXcon London? There
are still passes left there, but we know from experience that the last bundle of tickets doesn’t last long. Don’t wait. They go faster than you might think.

A “Spotlight” on asimo3089, the builder behind Roadrunner Canyon and more

Asimo3089 is a talented builder. From a glance at The Wind or his more recent adventure game, Roadrunner Canyon, you can gather that. All of his places are very different, visually and interactively, so we decided to have a chat with him and find out what inspires his creations. You can read the resulting article and see some of his great works in this, our most recent Spotlight feature.

Who’s making Robux?

We occasionally like to analyze the ROBLOX market to see what builders are leveraging features to turn a profit, and provide guidance to up-and-coming builders. In this story, we dig into the places that are most effectively making money per player visit. If you’re looking to earn yourself some extra Robux, you might find some useful tidbits of information.

We respond to your questions about dynamic lighting, physics, egg hunting and more

ROBLOX builders are passionate — and that passion is often reflected in the volume and detailed nature of the comments and feedback we receive. While we can’t respond directly to every piece of feedback that crosses our monitors, we can distill the sentiment and recurring questions. That’s what we did in this edition of Comments on Comments, a series where ROBLOX developers respond directly to builder comments on recent blog stories. If you’re interested in dynamic lighting (and, really, who isn’t), physics simulation or the 2013 Egg Hunt (and future Egg Hunts), you’ve got plenty of reading to do.

Get exclusive hats with ROBLOX cards from specific retailers

Every month, we release a new set of gear and hats you can only obtain by redeeming ROBLOX cards from particular retailers around the world. We recently swapped in a whole new selection of gear and hats for April, and we’re sure something in this mix will tickle your fancy!

You should play this ROBLOX game

Strobe has style. Sure, the game performs really well, has unique and responsive character controls, and is enjoyably fast-paced (you have to love the whoosh effect when sprinting), but that style – it just works. Still shots of the action don’t do it justice, so I pieced together a short video of gameplay footage from a quick round on Friday afternoon. You’ll probably be hearing more about this game — being developed by builders redditor, WhoBloxedWho and 3DShooter – in the future, but you should check it out today.

Bits

Check out this demo of an interface and visual effects that builder Quenty is developing
We’ve been experimenting with lighting and shadows, which has proven to lead to some dramatic effects
We’re still looking for ROBLOX builders who are attending Maker Faire Bay Area 2013 next month to present their creations at the ROBLOX booth