Now that all three BLOXcons have wrapped (and we’re hard at work creating our Virtual BLOXcon for September, in case you were wondering), we thought we’d take some time to talk with two top Hackathon performers (NickPatella and Ethancomputermad) to seek out tips for future participants. Their insight can help you get a better understanding of the type of skills it takes to win such a difficult and competitive building and scripting challenge.
To clarify, the ROBLOX Hackathon is a series of building and scripting challenges, where each participant is given something to create, and a time frame to create it. The builder must complete their creation (whether that’s a gun with a reloadable clip, a pig that oinks, or a bubble machine) before time runs out, or get as far along as possible. By the end, our panel of ROBLOX engineers scores each creation based on ingenuity, beauty, and functionality. There are a lot of types of contests we could run at BLOXcon, but the Hackathon blends many of our fundamental ideals, including the spirit and passion of creation and the rush of friendly competition.
Continue reading
We Bid Our Summer Interns Farewell
It seems like just yesterday that we created a post talking with our eager Summer interns about their plans for their tenure here at ROBLOX. Alas, time flies, and Merely, Seranok, MrDoomBringer and Stravant have completed their internships, and are off to continue studying Computer Programming at universities around the world. Before they left, we chatted with them about making the jump from user to employee, and what you can do to get your foot in the door.
Presenting the Third Set of BLOXY, Hall of Fame, Hackathon Winners
After a busy month and a half, the ROBLOX team has successfully taken BLOXcon around the world. Another completed BLOXcon also means another list of BLOXY, Hall of Fame, and Hackathon winners. Though this takes us closer to the end of our annual awards, there is more to come! The very final bunch of winners will be announced at the final BLOXcon of 2013, which takes place everywhere the internet exists on September 21st, 2013. For now, read on to see the creative minds that received awards at BLOXcon New York City!
BLOXcon NYC BLOXY Award Winners
If you’ve been keeping up with the blog, you know that we ran a Film Festival last Spring, and we received almost 500 entries in five categories: Building Showcase, Commercial, City-Themed, Short Film/Machinima, and Trailer. We announced five BLOXY Award winners at each BLOXcon; here are the winners announced in New York City.
Continue reading Crossfire: Crazyblox and Erikwesley96 Talk Course Design
Creativity and sharing are two qualities that fuel ROBLOX, and it’s in that spirit that we created Crossfire, a series where we chat with ROBLOX game developers about their game design choices. For this outing, we interviewed users crazyblox and erikwesley96, creators of Flood Escape and Death Run, respectively. Each game places a focus on dynamically changing obstacles and maps, and each of the two games have been widely popular, with over 7 million combined plays.ROBLOX: First off, thanks for doing this. You guys both have really unique and interesting takes on your basic obstacle course. The first thing you notice right away is that both of you have multiple levels in your game. Do you think having more levels makes more people want to play?
crazyblox: Having multiple levels is a really interesting element because events then begin happening in different rooms, in the same game. But I think it helps to create random gameplay experiences. I also split all the levels into an “easy,” “medium,” and “hard” because the skill level of people on ROBLOX varies quite a bit, from what I’ve seen. By the time you get to “hard” levels, it’s more than just muscle reflex–it’s more of a mind game.
Continue reading When It Comes to Paid Access, What Works and What Doesn’t?
We like releasing features that give builders and game developers the freedom and flexibility to experiment and find new paths to success. Our Paid Access feature, which essentially lets you charge Robux for players to access your game, is being leveraged by builders and staff alike. There has been a mixed reaction about whether Paid Access will benefit ROBLOX, though the numbers we pulled were quite revealing. We thought we’d take a look at some of the metrics behind Paid Access to see how builders and game developers are using it, and what strategies appear to be effective in the early stages.
First, Some Numbers
- Combined, the Top Five highest grossing users have earned 1,222,621 Robux in Paid Access alone.
- The Highest Grossing builder to utilize this service has generated 591,291 Robux from Paid Access.
- 712 builders have generated over 100 Robux from Paid Access.
- 120 builders have generated over 1,000 Robux from Paid Access.
Analysis
So far, enabling this service has surprised us in many ways. The top earning Paid Access games are radically different titles–don’t take my word for it either, have a look for yourself.
Continue reading Comments on Comments: Battle, Outlines, Paid Access and More
Many readers pour significant time into writing thoughtful replies to our blog articles, and we want to make sure we address them. Comments on Comments exists so you get answers, straight from a ROBLOX developer, to your questions. For this post, we’ve tapped Creative Director John Shedletsky and Software Engineer Dan Healy to answer a wide range of questions about outlines, making the new ROBLOX Battle, our recently released “White List” chat system, our new Paid Access feature and much more.
To start off, here are the two most frequent questions asked on our blog in the last month:
Q: Will outlines be optional?
Continue reading Presenting the Second Round of BLOXcon 2013 Award Winners
Right on the heels of our second sold-out BLOXcon in London, we’ve got some more winners to announce in various forms–more BLOXY Awards, more ROBLOX Hall of Fame winners, and, of course, winners of our Hackathon in London! Let’s start with BLOXY Award winners (and stay tuned for more; we’ll be announcing the remaining winners shortly after BLOXcon NYC).
