Six Builders Collaborate on Boston 1763–and It’s Awesome

By Alan Fackler - November 11, 2013

Step into City of Boston 1763, and find yourself immersed in historical detail. The place is a collaborative effort between many prolific ROBLOX builders and scripters from around the world: BritishLeader (formerly known as cooldude215), Solyx (formerly known as FighterAce), eaglestrike999, scott12341, bruck and JulianVidiVici (formerly known as juliane14). These six individuals have joined forces to realize their collective vision of colonial Boston, from the booming harbor to the city streets and taverns. I got the chance to have a chat with Solyx and BritishLeader about the process of creating a large city–with contributors scattered far and wide.

Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: November 10th, 2013

By Andrew Haak - November 10, 2013

Every week, we’re busy telling the stories behind our community, our technology and our place in the gaming and technology industries. For those of you who catch up with us over the weekend, the Weekly ROBLOX Roundup collects the best stuff to hit our various avenues of publication in the last week. This time: the experiment that is Space Knights, the first round of DevEx success stories, updates and improvements to our cloud of game servers, stories of ROBLOX being used in school, a new fan art contest, creating tension with lights and sounds, Bawxing and Bloxborne, a video corner, and other bits and pieces. Enjoy.

Seven-day blog recap

We made Space Knights

And in this article, Sorcus explains why the Games Team did it under the guise of RaceToTheBottom.

Calling All Artists! Fan Art Contest #2 Starts Today

By Andrew Haak - November 9, 2013

We’ve hit a lull between the excitement of BLOXtober and the upcoming holiday and winter festivities. Rather than let you catch your breath, we’re taking this opportunity to launch a short fan art contest! We held a similar contest last spring and received plenty of great submissions, and we’re excited to see (and share) a fresh round of fantastic ROBLOX art.

Developer’s Journal: Using Lights and Sounds to Create Tension

By Dapale - November 8, 2013

Hello everyone! Dapale here. Ever since I began my ROBLOX journey two years ago, I have always wanted to create a game where players could experience fear in a chilling atmosphere. With the recent advents of dynamic lighting and user-uploaded sounds, I was able to realize my vision with Sanatorium. In my Developer’s Journal, I’ll be explaining the level design of Sanatorium, with an emphasis on using lighting and audio to create tension and fear.

Lighting

It was a huge coincidence that dynamic lighting released shortly after I finished building Sanatorium’s level. Once I got the hang of how SpotLights and PointLights worked, I started placing bricks around my map where I thought lighting would be appropriate. I used PointLights instead of SpotLights because they give me more creative control, and light rooms in a broader, more subtle way. Experimenting revealed to me that lighting a level revolves around understanding sources of light, and where they belong relative to the map. I found that being subtle is the best way to create an eerie atmosphere.

Do You Use ROBLOX for School?

By Alan Fackler - November 7, 2013

That’s the question we asked our Twitter followers a week ago. We encouraged them to take a survey about how they’ve used ROBLOX for school assignments and projects. The feedback we received showed us that not only is ROBLOX helping young technology enthusiasts learn the skills they need to turn their passions into careers, but helping them have fun while earning great marks in school. We sifted through the submissions in search of creative uses of ROBLOX in student educational endeavors. Here are four of our favorites.

Getting You Into Games More Efficiently Than Ever

By Vlad Fridman - November 6, 2013

Game instances started per second over a 24 hour period.

A little over a year ago, we took an in-depth look at what happens every time you hit the “Play” button. Fact is, a lot goes on behind the scenes when you start a new instance of ROBLOX. That being said, we’ve made several changes over the past couple of months in the constant and never-ending quest to make getting in and out of games as seamless and smooth as possible. We tapped ROBLOX Web Engineer Vlad Fridman to explain the dramatic infrastructural changes that have taken place in the last couple of months, and tell us where they’ll take us in the near future.

RaceToTheBottom Races to the Top with Space Knights

By Sorcus - November 5, 2013

Space Knights marks the single biggest gaming experiment we’ve ever attempted on ROBLOX. Now that the experiment is over, we want to tell you about it. Space Knights was developed internally, right here at ROBLOX HQ, by three members of the Games Team and me. We worked in total secrecy – outside of this team, no one else at ROBLOX knew about the project, and it was important that we kept it that way.