Introducing colbert2677, Hobbyist Developer and Platform Enthusiast

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This is solely a portfolio for me to submit with applications.

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ProblemSolverBloxy

colbert2677
Hobbyist Developer and Platform Enthusiast

Looking to develop, learn, entertain and be entertained.


Contents

  1. Background
  2. Tool Belt
  3. Acknowledgements
  4. Showcase
    4.1. Projects
    4.2. Other works
    4.3. GitHub
  5. Learning Corner
    5.1. Tutorials
    5.2. Resources
    5.3. Medium Articles
  6. Availability
  7. Collaboration Information
  8. Contact Information

Background

This section I dedicate to establishing my background as a developer and who I am. They may not be the most interesting part of this portfolio, but maybe you want to know a bit about me.

Get to know me

Hello! Iā€™m colbert2677. Iā€™m 21 years old and am an avid participant of various pastimes and hobbies, most notably anime and programming. I have been on Roblox since 2010 and possess far too many accounts, assets, history, commitments and more on this site. My ultimate goal is to take my hobby and start turning it into revenue for three main causes: supporting myself and helping the family, supporting my favourite creators and having some spending money for my hobbies.

Iā€™ve seemed to always have had a fascination with technology. For around 4 years, I had my sights set on becoming a construction engineer. Soon after being told about Roblox, my sights changed towards programming and have been that way since. Though Iā€™ve still got a long way to go despite spending 10 years coding on Roblox Studio and attempting to branch out, I strive to learn new things about programming every day.

I canā€™t write a proper conclusion here, because I like to think that my story has not ended yet. My story is continually being authored, with many experiences along the way. I am always hopeful that the next chapter will be better than the last.

Career acknowledgements

First off, I want to say that I almost wholly owe the start of my career to three people: my brother, Nitefal (formerly djbrian2) and the developers over at Rudimentality. Theyā€™ve each helped introduce me to new parts of Roblox, which eventually led me to be in the position I am in now.

The one who introduced me to Roblox was my brother (who is no longer an active Roblox player), who was just so desperate to show me this ā€œcool gameā€ that he played at a friendā€™s house. Not long after, I became hooked on Roblox. I was looking for fun activities then; Roblox satisfied that.

As I kept playing games that simply captivated my interest, it eventually got to the point where I wanted to start making them. At some point, I came across Nitefalā€™s fan-made sequel to a game created by CoderQwerty named Contamination. Despite Nitefalā€™s growing success at the time, he still interacted with his gameā€™s community and I happened to be one of those people. I was a hardcore fan; following him around lots, trying to get his attention or talk to him, all the usual fan things.

A bit of time after revisiting Nitefalā€™s fan-made Contamination sequel often, I started getting into edit mode. I never made any substantial creations, but I was using the insert tool to add items. I donā€™t quite think I used Studio, just the edit mode that dropped you into a server alone so you could build and save. Often when I saw Nitefal Iā€™d ask him questions about programming and Studio. Heā€™d always answer - never a straight answer, but a pointer in the right direction. Iā€™m grateful that he never spoon fed me answers, because this wouldnā€™t open up opportunities for myself to actually learn. Many years down the line and heā€™d still recognise me and show me some new things he made - that was pretty cool.

Now, my last mention was Rudimentality. In my eyes, they were the big developers of the year, the ones who were going above and beyond with Roblox technologies. Rudimentality often left projects unfinished and open sourced them, so I of course grabbed myself a copy of their open source materials. Rudimentality was a primary source of learning for me, as Iā€™d skim through their code and slowly learn how to do things (e.g. how to make a button show a window if it was clicked). I canā€™t say much else about them since I never interacted with them. All I can give is a thanks for the open source material.

Timeline for how I learned how to develop

To be honest, I never expected that I would become passionate about development, much less become a developer myself. I donā€™t have much of a story I can share with you about my development experiences nor one that I fully remember, but youā€™re here because youā€™re curious. Presenting a timeline of my experiences.

For the years Iā€™ve been on Roblox, I got into Roblox Studio quite quickly. I was already loading up the build mode once I had played some games. I never formally got acquainted with Roblox Studio as a whole until around early or mid 2011.

I first started with build mode, the feature that existed before personal servers. You were given a few standard building tools and were forced into a full-screen session. Just before leaving, you could choose to save or discard changes. I remember throwing things around and calling that a game - small laboratories with exploding devices, giant walls of solid colour for rooms, a giant snake littered with fire meshes, so on. This was when I was trying to get a taste of making a game, but I never made anything proper.

Eventually came the time when I migrated from build mode to Roblox Studio. I was still very new and I was doing the same thing - searching the toolbox and dropping in a couple of free models I happened upon. The first real thing I did with Roblox Studio was change the pitch of the song ā€œOne Winged Angelā€ to replicate the one Nitefal had for his game and from there, I learned about the properties window. It still took a while before I started opening scripts.

Searching through the source code of open source Rudimentality games was when I first began looking into scripting and game functionality. It all took off from here. I still remember trying to act like a big-shot coderā€¦ I took up a few projects in groups (I still do), most of which ended up low quality or unfinished (still a relevant problem). My memory of early scripting days is quite hazy. Itā€™d take a while to remember any of it.

Thatā€™s about it. Were you expecting something grander? Sorry I couldnā€™t provide. Not everyone has the greatest story to accompany them. I donā€™t have such things to relish about.

Quick facts about me
  • I really like anime.
  • I am an avid follower of the SCP roleplay genre, which follows the SCP Wikiā€™s writings.
  • Nearly every account I own on the Internet uses the name ā€œcolbert2677ā€, save a few where I got the name permanently locked or it was occupied by someone else. Check with me via Roblox, Twitter or Discord if itā€™s me before proceeding in any dealings with a ā€œcolbert2677ā€.
    • I should really choose new usernames for websites, lol.
  • I first began coding when I was 9. I didnā€™t include this in my story, so here it is as a quick jot. Thanks, Rudi. Your team started my career.
  • I have contributed to far too many groups and games, but have not released any personal projects yet.

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Tool Belt

I find that introducing your proficiencies is one excellent way to show yourself off as a developer. It establishes what youā€™re strong at, learning and gives a general sense of your competency as a developer. In respect to this, the sections below will outline roles Iā€™m familiar with or delving into as well as a general summary of how Iā€™m fairing with each.

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Programming
Stance: Proficient

My strong suit is currently programming. The majority of my roles in teams have been on the programming side. Iā€™ve served as a lead programmer many times and in other cases, a support primarily regarding optimisation and best practices. My level of adaptability to new and unfamiliar codebases is quick, as Iā€™ve been working in a lot of game communities where I take the helm of anotherā€™s work. I have 10 years on my belt with Roblox Lua.

Game Design
Stance: Novice

I have served as a senior staffer or leadership role on several projects up until now, as well as helping to shape or modify the overall concept of a game. While this in itself is not explicitly game design on a professional level, I do feel I am at a point where I have enough creativity to participate in helping outline the game in design rather than to only do the heavy lifting in development. Iā€™d like to further my skills in this role as I still claim many critical development positions even now.

Environment Art
Stance: Require more time

Although I havenā€™t gotten many opportunities or free slots to try my hand at furthering my capabilities as an environmental artist, I think that I have the necessary know-hows to consider myself a novice at doing so. Iā€™ve made some small rudimentary builds in the past which I personally am proud of. All the environment work Iā€™ve done so far has just been for tinkering around, I do not have any actual work of this field featured in any active or personal projects.

Animation
Stance: Require more time

Animation is another field which I havenā€™t had very many demonstration chances. Iā€™m always up to make some quick animations to refine my skill in my spare time. Most of my animation work is not uploaded to Roblox, the ones that are up are old and simple. Animations help compliment a lot of the programming work that I do, so I find this one pretty important to hone in on for my journey towards building up my tool belt.

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Acknowledgements

Here is where I keep a list of acknowledgements Iā€™ve received on the platform. They include volunteer opportunities, work in an official capacity or recognition from Roblox (more specifically the Developer Relations Team) at events or normal functions.

  • DevRel QA Tester, NDA Verified (December 2018ā€”)

  • DevRel QA Tester of the Month (December 2018, January 2019)

  • DevForum Top Contributor (July 2019ā€”December 2020)

  • DevForum Community Post Approval (October 2019ā€”September 2020)

  • DevForum Community Editor (September 2020ā€”December 2020)

  • Developer Community Hero (2019, 2020)

  • Problem Solver Bloxy Award Recipient (2021)

  • Accelerator (June 2021ā€”August 2021)

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Showcase

Here is where the goods are. My showcase will always be filled with only my proudest and best work, so that you can gain an understanding of how I am at some of my peak moments. There is quite a bit of work that isnā€™t actually uploaded to any Roblox places.

Projects

Vyyrahk City for Imperial Vaktovia :star:
Vyyrahk City - Roblox
June 2022 ā€” April 2024

Contributions

Head Developer. Text pending.

PWNED 3 for Team Swordphin :star: (2021 Accelerator)
PWNED: Aeternae Memori - Roblox
July 2020 ā€” Present

Contributions

Being a new member on the team, I havenā€™t had too many opportunities to flex my muscles. I, however, have gotten into the groove of working with the gameā€™s systems and have developed a bit here.

Something Iā€™ve helped do is benchmark and optimise one of the gameā€™s coolest boss fights yet, Valkyrie. Low-end PCs werenā€™t being very cooperative with certain attacks. I was able to isolate the source of performance drops and, together with the project lead, have it run smoothly!

You can catch a peek at the boss fight (and our other content sneak peaks as well) here:

https://twitter.com/thephinRBLX/status/1268796547191443456

Some other things Iā€™ve done include minor backend edits.

Area 14 for SCPF || Special Containment Procedures Foundation
Area - 14 - Roblox
February 2020 ā€” December 2020

Contributions

Being the new lead developer, Iā€™ve picked up this gameā€™s progress and helped bring it new content. A lot of the new work that is currently being added comes from me, along with the team that I coordinate. So far, some things that Iā€™ve done:

  • Maintenance of Overture, a library loader for importing modules to scripts
  • New feature integrations through already robust, scalable systems
  • Created a command for select group members to create, join and manage private servers
  • Security implementation against confusable usernames

Owari Ro Seraph: Tainted Genesis for Rise Studios
Owari Ro Seraph: Tainted Genesis - Roblox
March 2018 ā€” May 2018, October 2018 ā€” July 2019

Contributions

I had formerly been a programmer working on this project brought on twice, however due to various circumstances that is no longer the case. A lot of the programming work here is still my own coding, however old and also merged with other styles.

Itā€™s not much and doesnā€™t work as well, but itā€™s a testament to how far Iā€™ve come.

Area 108 for [SCPF] Special Containment Procedures Foundation
Area - 108 - Roblox
July 2017 ā€” Present

Contributions

Text pending.

Teethyz Dentist for Teethyz Dentist
ā­ šŸ¦· Teethyz Dentist - Roblox
November 2016 ā€” July 2020

Contributions

Since November 2016, I have been the lead developer and sole programmer of Teethyz Dentist. We recently, however, gained a new programmer to help out with the workload.

A lot of the work here is old, though Iā€™ve been responsible for the development of the greater majority of this place in terms of its programming. Feel free to stop by for a look!

Other small works

Health screen testing (private):
https://www.roblox.com/games/4575690892/health-thing

Example filter system created to help resolve another userā€™s issue:
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-i-should-put-for-chat-registerchatcallback/556313/6?u=colbert2677

GitHub

This is sort of a showcase in its own right, so long as itā€™s content from me (repositories, pull requests, so on and so forth). My primary use for GitHub is for contributing to and releasing FOSS (free and open source software) as well as storing personal code samples.

You can always take a look at my GitHub profile to find something you might like from my stars or repositories. If youā€™re looking to see how this qualifies for a place in my showcase, check out my activity tab. You should be able to find some of my contributions hanging around.

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Learning Corner

I consider these non-development pieces in my showcase, as well as a resource corner. One of my passions is to support others and help them learn new things. With this in mind, Iā€™ve written a few articles regarding Roblox development that you can browse through. They may help you later!

Development Tutorials

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GuiButton User Input: Buggy behaviour workaround (Obsolete)
A simple method to work around the buggy MouseEnter/MouseLeave.
* Deprecated; Gui engine revised. Do not use for new work.

Brief Introduction to Tweening Models (Obsolete)
Want to move more than just a single part? Move more than one with this method!
* Superseded by Introduction to Tweening Models. Do not use for new work.

XY Problems and You: Develop better questions for your problems
Take home some nifty tips for asking better questions about problems youā€™re having.

Changing chat type and other chat settings without forking
Learn how to modify the chat without losing out on new updates.

Introduction to Tweening Models
Learn how to move around entire models with TweenService.

Verifying part touches via the client for client-side interactions
Learn how to properly verify part touches for fully client-sided interactions.

Creating customisable bubble chat colours with the old BubbleChat script
Learn how to change the colours of a bubble chat.

Resources

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An assortment of weapon meshes uploaded by Roblox
Sharing an assortment of meshes I found useful to my development.

Open-source code to get started on feeding your learning about get/setfenv
Example so you can learn how to use get/setfenv in your projects.
* Deprecated; disables Luau optimisations. Do not use for new work.

Programming in Lua (PiL) - Introduction to Lua from lua.org
An online book about programming in Lua from its very own Roberto Ierusalimschy.
* Working to revise the content here, as PiL is for Lua 5.1.

The While-Wait-Do Idiom, by cntkillme: Addressing while wait() loops
Talking about why while wait() do loops are bad in games and should not be used.

Client CoreScripts GitHub Repository & Semi-Comprehensive Overview
Taking a deeper look at the contents of the CoreScripts used in Roblox.
* Currently provides an outdated copy of the repository. Working to revise.

ClickUp: Free project management software
Explore a nifty project management software option for team collaborations.

FindFirstChild and WaitForChild: Addressing common bad practices and habits of each
Looking at two common-yet-misused functions in development.
* Some of the information here is inaccurate. Working to revise.

PSA: Enabling LoadStringEnabled doesn't instantly jeopardise your games
Clarification about the warning message given when trying to set LoadStringEnabled to true.

Medium Articles

No articles right now, sorry!

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Availability

Primarily, 2:00 PM EST to 5:00 AM EST on a regular day. 10:00 AM EST to 12:00 AM EST on a night of good rest. Fixing my sleeping schedule so that the second time is consistent.

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Collaboration Information

I do not render any services, therefore no payment or other collaboration information will be disclosed.

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Contact Information

Almost everywhere on the internet, I hold the username ā€œcolbert2677ā€. There are some instances where I am not a ā€œcolbert2677ā€ and itā€™s instead someone who took my username to pose as me, it was taken by coincidence or I used a different name for whatever reason. Always confirm with my primary accounts that it is me before interacting with them.

My primary accounts are listed below.

Roblox: colbert2677
Twitter: @colbert2677
Discord: colbert2677
YouTube: colbert2677 (UCfIH33JBjpsSoR5elWenfZw)

For business inquiries, please use DevForum PMs for the time being. I do not have any other formal communication route, so here will have to do. I will further establish contact via Discord if necessary.

* For Discord, make sure RoVer is in the server and the account is verified. You can search my groups and join a Discord to check if the colbert2677 accountā€™s roles match my roles in the group, since a false account will not be able to verify or access the same roles I can.

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Feel free to leave comments or testimonies both positive and constructive below. I am happy for you to share your experience working with me or some tough love tips for my improvement.

DO NOT POST REQUESTS BELOW, THEY WILL NOT BE REPLIED TO.

80 Likes

Amazing to see that you are still developing!

9 Likes

Wow nice work, you are a great developer!!!

2 Likes

I still feel that my portfolio could be stronger and that itā€™s lacking right now both in quantity and quality, but I appreciate the comment! I hope to continue to refine my craft from here on.

2 Likes

Your work is amazing!!!

1 Like

Wow this is some really good work!

3 Likes

Assuming threads in Collaboration do not survive the Collaboration categoryā€™s deletion, I have ā€œmovedā€ my portfolio over to GitHub Gists and will continue to update it there. In the future Iā€™m hoping to use a dedicated domain to display my works. I find that might be easier and more transferrable throughout my career to have a website over limiting myself to Roblox venues.

Gist

4 Likes