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.

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Over the past couple of years I’ve spent on ROBLOX, I’d like to think I’ve come up with some pretty crazy ideas for games. With the release of dynamic lighting, I was able to create games that looked precisely as I had imagined them. Then, with the recent release of uploadable sounds, I  was finally able to bring scenes to life with audio.

As soon as sounds were released, I knew immediately I wanted to create a cinematic work. I saw the announcement when I was doing my math homework, and, well, math homework suddenly seemed less important. I flipped over a piece of grid paper and started to plot a storyline. Once I had some general ideas on paper, I wrote a title above my notes: Nuclear Simulation. With some scribbled notes and a general idea of what this was going to look like, I jumped into ROBLOX Studio and started building the first “scene” of the game.

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Hello everyone, this is Catblox–I’ve been a long-time member of ROBLOX (five years and still going) and a scripter for a little over half that time. Today, I’m going to talk about some more advanced ways to use ROBLOX’s raycasting API – namely simulating the interactions of lasers with mirrors. I’ll walk you through the steps of how to turn an idea like this into a finished product, explaining the basics of vector (and Vector3) math and features of ROBLOX Studio’s API along the way. To check out an example of what I’ll be explaining, check out this test level I made, which will show you the basics behind this premise.

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Hey guys, I’m TheGamer101. You might recognize me as the creator of several popular ROBLOX games, including Sword Fighting Tournament, Ultimate Assassin’s Creed, and King of the Hill (the latter of which is the subject of this article). I’m here to share my personal development process for a complex map generation script that automatically builds a new map with every round of King of the Hill. Creating this was a real learning experience, and hopefully you’ll be able to pick up a few ideas I present and use them in your own unique development strategies.

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Hey guys, Gusmanak here to talk about our most successful update yet, Apocalypse Rising v.5.0.0. ZolarKeth and I have been hard at work for the past 11 months, developing improvements for Apoc (sorry, I call it that in short) since its release in July, 2012. When I launched the game, I never thought I’d end up spending so much time on one ROBLOX project. I’m fascinated at Apoc’s popularity–why has this game maintained popularity for such a lengthy period of time? What are the most important factors in development of gameplay? What makes Apocalypse Rising special? With this Developer’s Journal article, I’ll answer these questions.

A Solid Foundation

ZolarKeth and I stood by one rule when developing this title: never add weight to something that can’t stand on its own. If we plan on releasing a big feature that will change the game, we will not expand on that feature until it’s solid, functioning, and stable. You’d be surprised how often developers fall into this trap. They become excited about ideas, and worry less about implementation. These half-baked ideas find their way into games, making for half-finished, unstable features. When developing a game on ROBLOX, problems will arise—the average developer hates troubleshooting these problems. When you’re caught in this cycle, the most exciting part of your day is fixing breaks, which isn’t very gratifying. More often than not, developers never fully finish these fixes, resulting in a broken game that causes frustration among players. Even worse, developers often find that in order to solve problems in their game, the game must be radically altered.

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Last month, we gave builders an opportunity to write for the ROBLOX blog. We received a wealth of thoughtful submissions and quickly started working with potential authors on articles that leverage their unique experience and expertise. MahPizzaIsHere has established himself as a premiere builder and level designer, and today discusses his techniques for designing stylized, but efficient first-person-shooter levels.

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Last week, we encouraged users to send in their ideas for blog articles. We received a wealth of submissions and have already started working with a few potential authors on articles that leverage their unique expertise’. Crazyman32 is a name which which we’re sure you’re familiar. Creator of Perilous Skies and overall ROBLOX innovator, crazyman32 jumped at the chance to write about the design and development of Perilous Skies: New Horizons, the official sequel to his popular ROBLOX title.

First, a quick word:

ROBLOX has always been medium to allow me to let my creativity flow freely. I express myself through the art of game making—a skill I am always working on improving. During my time on ROBLOX, I’ve managed to create some games that have been favored among the community. Perilous Skies, a game that thrusts you into the cockpit of a fighter jet to fight off enemies with homing missiles and machine guns, is my favorite creation. Unfortunately unsafe programming practices, like implementing many preliminary features that have since changed, has caused my favorite title to fall from the soaring heights it once reached. This didn’t discourage me in the least; it inspired me to begin work on my newest title, Perilous Skies: New Horizons.

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