Creativity and sharing are two qualities that fuel ROBLOX, and it’s in that spirit we created Crossfire, a series where we chat with ROBLOX game developers about their game design choices. For this outing, we interviewed loleris and CloneTrooper1019, creators of Darkness, and The Stalker, respectively. These are two seasoned ROBLOX veterans who have both participated in separate Crossfires in the past, but their two games, which are among the most popular games at the moment, are competing too closely to ignore.
ROBLOX: Thanks for doing this guys. So, on a surface level, both of your games are really similar. What would you say is the biggest difference between your games?
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Crossfire: Stickmasterluke and Alexnewtron Talk RO-Dodgeball
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 alexnewtron and stickmasterluke, creators of ROBLOX Dodgeball, and ROBLOX Battle’s Dodgeball mode, respectively. This marks the first time we’ve chosen a ROBLOX developer to enter into a Crossfire with another user–and the conversation was totally worth it. Check it out.ROBLOX: Welcome to Crossfire guys, and thanks for participating! Our first question is simple: why dodgeball?
stickmasterluke: When we were revamping ROBLOX Battle, dodgeball was the first idea that came to mind when we were trying to come up with new game modes. It’s quick, it’s fun. It’s almost like a mini-game that just focuses on straight-up combat. There are no places to go, or areas to explore. You fight as hard and fast as you can, then it’s over.
Continue reading Crossfire: TheGamer101 & Loleris Talk Sword Fighting
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 TheGamer101 and loleris, creators of Sword Fighting Tournament and Intense Sword Fighting, respectively. Both games focus on strategic (surprise!) sword fighting–though that’s where the similarities end. With the recent upswing in popularity of Intense Sword Fighting (the game is just over a week old), this Crossfire article was a no-brainer.
ROBLOX: Thanks for being a part of this guys! There seems to be a real feud going on between your two games. What was your strategy in promoting your game and making it popular?
Continue reading Building ROBLOX Battle, Part 3: Metrics and the Big Picture
Our Games Team has been spending significant time making ROBLOX Battle as robust and feature-rich as it can be. We’ve already covered some of the more interesting updates, including the core gameplay mechanics that have been introduced recently and level design. Today, we had the chance to chat with Sorcus, the Games Team Lead, about using metrics to inform and gauge infrastructural changes made to ROBLOX Battle. Oh, and ROBLOX Battle is now open source. Read on for more.
Making the decision to completely overhaul ROBLOX Battle was challenging–as the Lead of the Games Team, I’m tasked with thinking about the big picture. Whereas Dan worked on gameplay specifically, and Luke was tasked with designing levels, my job was overseeing every single update to ROBLOX Battle. Early on during talks about revamping our flagship title, one thing became abundantly clear to me: if we’re going to do this, we want metrics.
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 Building ROBLOX Battle, Part 2: Level Design
If you’ve been keeping up with the blog (or if you’ve played ROBLOX Battle lately), you’ll have undoubtedly noticed major changes being made to one of our flagship titles. We’ve been updating and enhancing ROBLOX Battle to become a much deeper and more intuitive game. In our first part of the Building ROBLOX Battle series, we talked about how ROBLOX developers spent a ton of time enhancing gameplay by adding new modes, weapons, and much more. Today, we got the chance to sit down and talk with stickmasterluke about designing the new maps in ROBLOX Battle and some of the challenges of creating beautiful and balanced levels.
When we decided, for sure, that we wanted to revamp ROBLOX Battle a few months back, Sorcus made the suggestion of having a cycle of levels instead of just letting Crossroads become the staple level of ROBLOX Battle (even though it still sort of is). I was tasked with creating and building these new levels, and knew this early on that it would be no small task. Starting entirely from scratch (and some detailed notes I took from Crossroads), I started building.
Continue reading Building ROBLOX Battle, Part 1: Core Gameplay Mechanics
We’ve made some drastic improvements to every facet of ROBLOX Battle, our flagship internally developed combat title, over the last several weeks. New game modes, maps, character animations, and social interactions have turned Battle into an entirely different game. These changes are substantial for numerous reasons–not only do they revamp the ROBLOX Battle gameplay experience, they serve as a benchmark for future product enhancements. We went behind the scenes with the Content Team to find out how and why ROBLOX Battle has changed, starting with the core gameplay experience. We tapped Software Engineer Dan Healy, who’s been working closely on the game, to deliver the details.
Gameplay
ROBLOX Battle has come a long way–what was once a simple combat game featuring six weapons and a single map has since evolved into a robust and layered multiplayer experience. When we initially decided to turn ROBLOX Battle into a deeper game, the Content Team got together and brainstormed game types that would be ideal for Battle. We started implementing new maps and modes, and have since renovated the entire core experience.
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