Use Gamehero’s MIDI Player to Play Music in Your Game

By Alan Fackler - February 21, 2013

Ever wonder what ROBLOX would be like with music? User Gamehero certainly has, and stepped outside of just “wondering” and actually created something that’s pretty innovative: a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) player. Before we take a look at the player and show you how to use it in your games, let’s go over what exactly a MIDI file is.

MIDI is a technical standard that can carry event messages that specify notation, pitch and velocity, and send them to separate devices. MIDI files have an extremely small footprint–they’re often very small files, especially for how long the songs can actually be. MIDI versions of songs often makes them sound like “8-bit” versions of themselves–they are composed entirely of virtual instruments.

Spotlight: Agent767′s Script for Fully Destructible Worlds

By Alan Fackler - February 16, 2013

We like using our Spotlight articles to feature not just famous ROBLOXians, but those who are doing innovative things with our platform. If you pop over to Agent767′s profile, you’ll see different iterations of Crossroads, a map that has become universally known on ROBLOX. Each of the iterations feature a slightly modified fragmentation tech test, and we’re here to tell you that these tests are awesome.

RGC 2013: Announcing the London Venue and Third Location!

By Alan Fackler - February 15, 2013

If you’ve been keeping up with our ROBLOX Game Conference announcements, you know that we’re taking RGC 2013 on the road, and will be stopping off at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago on July 13, before traversing the Atlantic to visit our UK fans in London. What you don’t know is where we’re going in London, and where we’re going after that.

Using ROBLOX Models to Expedite Game Creation

By Alan Fackler - February 6, 2013

No, we’re not talking about good looking people; we’re talking about ROBLOX models. A model can be virtually anything–from a Pokeball, to a Sword Pack, to a building, to a certain styling of hair–there are millions of models in the catalog that you can use in the places and games that you’re building. And each and every one is totally free!

Why Use Models?

ROBLOX Studio Splash Screen Contest: The Winners

By Alan Fackler - January 31, 2013

We were blown away. Not just by the sheer amount of entries we received for our ROBLOX Studio splash screen contest (over 3,000!), but by the amount of ingenuity, creativity, and talent on display in each of the entries. We had originally postulated that we’d be choosing five winners–but we just couldn’t distill that much awesome into five winning slots. So we’ve expanded our circle to include 10 winners, each of whom will receive the prize of 20,000 Robux.

We’ll also be featuring one of the 10 winning splash screens each week moving forward to give you 10 awesome weeks of custom ROBLOX Studio loading screens. After those 10 weeks are up, we’re going to show more of the entries on a regular basis in an effort to ensure that the Studio splash screen is always a design submitted by one of our users. Believe us, you guys sent more than enough to last, ahem, a few years.

Spotlight: D4rk886, Creator of Base Wars: The Land

By Alan Fackler - January 28, 2013

Base Wars: The Land is the hugest game to ever hit ROBLOX. User d4rk886 created a game that is universally cherished, as evidenced by the 21 million (and climbing) visits the game has received and the RGC 2012 Users Choice Award it received for Best Game. Though many of our Spotlight articles are about users who are just beginning to pave their paths through ROBLOX, we universally agreed that talking to the creator of Base Wars: The Land was a must. Getting in contact with d4rk886 wasn’t easy–he has a busy schedule and lives in Hong Kong. We finally got the chance to talk with him via Skype, where we talked about future plans (hint: he’s working on a new game, and it’s awesome), and of course, Base Wars: The Land.

D4rk886 is humble about his success on ROBLOX–he notes that Base Wars: The Land, was an educational experience, and that he was learning how to program during the three month period it took to create the game.

ROBLOX Mobile Now Supports Vehicles and Chat on All Devices

By Alan Fackler - January 23, 2013

We’ve been keeping tabs on your ROBLOX Mobile feedback, and today we’re happy to report that some of your requests have been fulfilled. Vehicles (cars, trucks, vans, even skateboards) can now be controlled using the standard controls of ROBLOX Mobile. We’ve also added chat functionality to the app on iPhone and iPod Touch, so those of you with such devices can communicate with one another in-game.

Driving a vehicle on a touch interface is a tricky notion–we elected to go with a straightforward solution. You can drive vehicles on ROBLOX Mobile the same way you walk; the virtual joystick on the bottom left corner of the screen. Pushing up on the stick accelerates your vehicle, while pulling back causes it to brake (and reverse). We were able to do this by updating the code in our vehicle seats to recognize different types of devices. We’re very interested in finding out how our mobile builders will utilize this in the coming months.