We’re always keeping a close eye on fantastic and innovative creations in ROBLOX–and are continually impressed by what we find. Andrew and I go in and out of virtual worlds every single day, so it probably comes as no surprise that we make note of the particularly beautiful places or games we find, for the purposes of articles just like this. Below, you’ll find six creative and beautifully detailed levels that we’ve come across in the past month during our extensive travels throughout ROBLOX. Enjoy!

Far Lands:

Far Lands features a sort of tropical getaway in the form of a floating island; waterfalls cascade off the side of the level into a well a few studs below the baseplate, and there’s some lush and vibrant vegetation to check out. There’s also a highly detailed bell you can take a look at–only then will your attention probably be directed to the massive white cloud hanging precariously over the floating island, as if some sort of natural disaster is seconds away from happening. Oh, and watch your step if you choose to go through the front door.

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Art is everywhere on ROBLOX–whether it’s the visual aesthetic of a virtually-built place, the design of your character’s clothing, or the look of a decal or thumbnail. Further still, we’ve come across a lot of off-site art directly inspired by ROBLOX, which brings us to Zelios. His fascination with art, like his fascination with ROBLOX, began at an early age. He began creating pieces of art based around the world of ROBLOX, and is now the premiere, go-to visual artist for game makers looking for stellar, high-resolution promotional art.

His clients include names you might recognize (we’re being sarcastic): Merely, TheGamer101, CloneTrooper1019, to rattle off a few. His intricate designs are built entirely from the ground up, and he works with his clients every step of the way to ensure that the finished pieces properly express their intent. I got the chance to talk with Zelios about a wide range of topics, including the life of a prolific visual artist on ROBLOX.

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ROBLOX has teamed with Fox Pictures to present Sword Fight on the Heights: Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters Edition. The ever-famous Sword Fight on the Heights level has gotten a watery facelift, as well as some brand new water and ice-themed weapons for you to collect and wield. Battle up to 13 other players using your ROBLOX avatar in an effort to collect all four weapons, scattered precariously throughout the map, and earn the prized Golden Fleece gear.

The four weapons featured in Sword Fight on the Heights: Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters Edition were hand-chosen from the catalog and modified for game balance. The Beach Battle Sword allows you to shoot waves at opponents and the Ice Trident pushes foes great distances on contact– both are useful when it comes to knocking enemies into the bottomless pit below. The Ice Breaker gives you the ability to freeze opponents in a block of ice, and the Ice Axe features a spinning attack that slows the movement of your opponents upon contact. While the damage attributes and cooldown times on special strikes are very different from weapon to weapon, everything has been tweaked for a dynamic and unpredictable gameplay experience.

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Last weekend at BLOXcon Chicago, we announced the winners of a bunch of prestigious awards. BLOXY Awards go to ROBLOX filmmakers, who crafted films for five unique categories in the ROBLOX Film Festival. The Hall of Fame Awards were designed to highlight some of the best community-created content of the last year. Finally, this year’s ROBLOX Hackathon was the most challenging yet, offering scripting and building challenges that pushed the knowledge boundaries of our cunning participants. In this article, we’ll be detailing the winners of each of these events, though keep in mind that there will be more–different winners will be revealed at each respective BLOXcon, so stay tuned to the blog for more winners after each remaining location. All winners will receive their virtual prizes in the near future.

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BLOXcon Chicago 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’ll be announcing five winners–one per category–at each BLOXcon, so keep an eye out for more.

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I imagine I’ll update this article sporadically as I write it. Right now, I’m hovering at 40,000 feet in the air between time zones, making it impossible to know exactly what time it actually is. It’s early. I’m traveling back to California at approximately 537 miles per hour (thanks for the useful info, United in-flight magazine!), and am nodding off occasionally. I am exhausted. In a good way.

You see, the 2013 version of BLOXcon is something we’ve never done before. We’ve had conventions, sure. Last year’s ROBLOX Game Conference here in the Bay Area was a blast, and a success! But it was practically down the road; this year, we’re traveling to three cities, all thousands of miles away. And if our time spent in Chicago was any indication, we’re a third of the way through one heck of a journey.

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After mentioning the ability to select individual parts from a model in last week’s Feedback Loop, we were surprised to find how many of our builders were enthralled with, and grateful for, what we thought was a relatively minor suggestion. Alas, there are many small things you can learn that can make your building experience with Studio easier and faster. We decided to talk with Creative Director John Shedletsky and the Studio Team’s Tyler Berg to get some basic building advice. We’ll start with technical advice from John.

Various changes have hit the ROBLOX Games page in the past couple of weeks. The “Top Earning” sort allows users to see which games are able to rake in the most amount of Robux. The thumbs up/thumbs down rating system gives you the power to vote on the content populating that page, so that the entire community can band together to establish an easy-to-read quality metric. We’re also in the process of rolling out a brand-new layout that shows you a lot more content.

Since the release of our ratings system, we’ve been keeping an eye on the top-voted places on the Games page. We decided to take a look at the top 100 vote-getters, and do a bit of analysis–particularly as to what aspects drive players to cast positive votes. 

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