I already began posting within the past few weeks, and failed to notice this thread previously. My apologies.
1. How did you find Roblox?
My cousin and I found Roblox through an online advertisement, back in 2007. It was something along the lines of “you can build you own lego-like world” and such.
2. How did you get started with development on the Roblox platform?
I started messing around in the old “Build Mode,” which was like a combination of Edit Mode and testing, where you control your character in real time while also being able to script in it. Edit mode was a thing back then, but I didn’t use it at first. (This was before Filtering Enabled was even planned)
I learned to script by altering Free Model code to see how it changed. Frankly I took longer to grow as a developer overall than I would have liked. Fortunately, I do nearly everything myself nowadays.
Overall, my development is inspired by other games I played. My early development, including the first game mentioned in the next section, was inspired by games like Kingdom Hearts and the Pac Man World trilogy.
3. Current goals/achievements on the platform
I will start with achievements: I managed to make a multi-place game before universes were a thing, known as “Dark Blox Chronicles,” or “DBC” for short (Not just “Dark Blox,” that is a different game by someone else). It was story-based with platforming, combat (if you can even call it that), and at times, a puzzle or two. Since I grew slowly as a developer, I took far too long to develop that game and never finished. I started remaking it, but was overwhelmed and decided to move onto something more manageable. Fortunately I somehow managed to create something that my friends at the time appreciated. I may return to it in the future if I improve enough as a developer.
My current goal is to make a game called “Puzzle Dungeon,” where the player explores dungeons that they can manipulate by swapping rooms with each other and/or turning them around. Unlike with DBC, this game is not story-based (I may add a bit of a story later and definitely plan to add lore), so I eventually will be able to stop development at some point without it feeling incomplete. The game is rather niche, but I have had fun with it so far, and will be moving on to (and hopefully finishing) the fourth dungeon before the year ends. I make it my goal to try something new with each dungeon, both mechanics-wise and development-wise, not just to keep the dungeons fresh, but also to gain development experience.
Puzzle Dungeon also includes a combat system, which I am working on as part of a pseudo-ulterior motive: to make Player Vs. Environment combat that is actually fun, which DBC lacks and will need if I return to it someday. Fortunately, a good boss fight can be a puzzle in its own way!
4. What is your role in the developer community? (eg. GFX, UI Designer, Programmer, Builder etc)
As I have created my games 99.9% on my own (I have had friends help with a few things and so far have mostly used avatar bundles for my characters, which I almost always retexture and occasionally alter in Blender), I will list things relevant to my experience based on how confident and experienced I am with them. Whatever title I have on this forum is good enough; I simply figured I should share my progress on a handful of things. (Forgive me for not formatting this properly if there is a way to do so)
Certainly:
- Builder
- Scripter
Partially, but haven’t refined my skills in too much: - UI designer (script-wise I am decent, design-wise I have considerable room to improve)
- Modeller (slightly, but I am aiming to improve with Blender)
- Composer/Sound (nothing sound-effect wise yet; barely music-wise and on an inspirational basis, but I aim for my games’ entire soundtracks to consist of original music if they ever exist)
Not really, but worth mentioning:
Clothing (I have done very little, but a tiny bit for game characters and my own avatar)
GFX (I have not looked into graphics effects yet, unless making a dungeon where the skybox and time of day change depending on which room you are in counts; I would like to change with this at some point)
5. Anything else you would like to include
As you can see (if not have seen already), my posts tend to be long. I try to avoid posting anything unless I feel I can offer something meaningful. My apologies for any inconvenience that provides. That all likely is part of my tendency to overcomplicate things, which could very well explain my situation with DBC as well as how niche Puzzle Dungeon is.
Thanks for reading, and I look forward to being more of a member of this community!
