We’ve talked previously about how many users can use ROBLOX as a platform for starting lucrative careers. Speaking to that effect, we decided to check in with some of our summer interns, who are approaching the end of their times here at ROBLOX, and see what they’ve been up to over the last couple of months. Turns out they’ve been working on some big projects. Check it out. 

Garrett Fleenor – Senior, Oregon State University

I got the chance to work on the LEGO® Hero Factory: Breakout game, alongside fellow developer Zach Linblad (fusroblox), and it turned out to be a really fun game. Outside of our overall goal, which was to create a scavenger hunt-type-game, we were given quite a bit of creative freedom. Zach created the basic drop zone code, and John built the city. We continued iterating the game until we arrived at a rewarding, immersive 3D experience.

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A couple weeks ago, I expounded on the similarities between ROBLOX users and independent game developers. I hope, if nothing else, it empowered some readers. In the article, I cited Base Wars: The Land, Apocalypse Rising and Natural Disaster Survival as examples of indie development happening in ROBLOX. Of course, those games fall into the upper echelon of popularity and quality, and represent a standard that few ROBLOX games reach.

It might seem like a lofty goal to create the next Base Wars: The Land or Apocalypse Rising, but you can get there. It probably just won’t happen on your first try.

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Every week, we’re busy telling the stories behind our platform, our technology, and our place in the gaming and technology industries. For those of you who catch up with ROBLOX 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 RoWars revival, LEGO Hero Factory: Breakout, what happens when you press the “Play” button on ROBLOX and more.

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Every week, we’re busy telling the stories behind our platform, our technology, and our place in the gaming and technology industries. For those of you who catch up with ROBLOX over the weekend, the Weekly ROBLOX Roundup collects the best stuff to hit our various avenues of publication in the last week. This time: ROBLOX users as indie game developers, the new Build page, an inside look at popular Catalog items and our thoughts on your feedback.

ROBLOX users as indie game developers

Independent game development hit its stride in the mid 2000s, when technology and distribution got good enough that small teams — even individuals — could develop full-featured games and get them in front of consumers without the help of publishers. In many ways, ROBLOX users function like indie game developers: creating unique, outside-the-box gameplay and distributing content via the web, all with the minimal resources of a small team (or less).

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Game development and user-generated content fuel ROBLOX, and one of our goals is to make sure all users — not just paid members — know that they can build their own games and create original content. To that end, we recently introduced version one of the Build page, now accessible from the main navigation menu at Roblox.com.

The Build page centralizes all the content you’ve created: games, shirts, t-shirts, pants and models. While it currently serves as the easiest way to view and manage all your creations, separate from your inventory, our vision is for it to become a launch point for game development.

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Every week, we’re busy telling the stories behind our platform, our technology, and our place in the gaming and technology industries. For those of you who catch up with ROBLOX over the weekend, the Weekly ROBLOX Roundup collects the best stuff to hit our various avenues of publication in the last week. This time: ROBLOX’s virtual economy and how you use it to make money, hack week coverage, the end of bytecode in ROBLOX and developing scary ROBLOX games.

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In the time since its launch, ROBLOX has gone from being compatible with Internet Explorer to five major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. As part of our ongoing effort to streamline ROBLOX, we recently removed a legacy of single-browser support: the embedded browser in the ROBLOX Player.

This browser occasionally caused problems for users with a default browser other than Internet Explorer and slight confusion as to whether you should browse games in the Player or on Roblox.com. Now, there is a clear distinction between browsing, which takes place in your preferred web browser, and game play, which happens in the ROBLOX Player. We believe a faster, leaner application will benefit ROBLOX users more in the long run than the Player’s web browser.

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