We’re excited to be back with another round of Featured Games! The developers behind this sort’s games gave us a peek behind the curtains to talk about their games, Featured Game program experience, and future plans.
Inspiration
As with many other featured developers, we want to know how this round’s Featured game developers came up with the idea for their featured game! The developers from this round have inspiration-stories from all parts of history and life. Chaotic_Cody discussed a previous job he had in 2013-2014, where he first found inspiration to make a game that supports a large number of players and integrates geometric figures with game play. Alternatively, SirMing did a little research: he says that he took a look at the Roblox front page, and realized how popular role-playing games are. To give him the acting theme, he simply researched “most popular dream jobs for kids” and found “actor”. From this, Action! was created!
Other developers, such as NicholasDev and B_rcode, gained inspiration from working and chatting with other developers on the platform. After chatting with InsanelyLuke and LordJudd, NicholasDev decided to make a game based on Apocalypse Rising, a game that the three developers particularly loved. B_rcode found similar inspiration after discussing the boss design of the bosses in Book of Monsters with Digital_Boy. They decided to add buttons to the back of the boss, and the conversation snowballed into milk cartons and other fun features in the game.
Take Aways
We asked the developers who were featured to tell us what they learned while completing the Featured Games Program. The Developers returned with some great insight!
SirMing found value in striving for the Featured Game guidelines; he believes that these guidelines are good for any game you’re making, regardless of if it gets featured. NicholasDev agrees with this attitude, going a step further to say that these guidelines can help make your game the best that it can be.
B_rcode brought up a good piece of feedback: “When you get featured, not only will you see a lot of new players, but also a lot of new bugs. Be sure to set up an error logging system which saves errors somewhere that you can access them, so you can fix them as soon as possible.”
Current Projects
These developers are always brainstorming, creating new games or updating their current games. We asked Developers if they have been working on any new projects. Chaotic_Cody told us that balancing his work and development is difficult, but in his free time, he’s been working on a new open world ship battling game. SteadyOn is working on Bakery Tycoon 2, Trains Tycoon and another secret project. Beartikal and babymariobebe are working on a new version of Hotel, which will be rebranded but their original. NicholasDev is working on major updates for Salvage, but his studio, Silicon Digital, is brainstorming some awesome new games! SirMing is also working on Egg Farm Simulator, which can also be played on Roblox.
Advice to Others Looking to Develop
“Make your game available on as many platforms as possible - don’t alienate your markets. Make the idea simple, but fun. The easier a game is to pick up and play, the better your player retention will be. On another note, do visual effects on the client, and verify the legitimacy on the server. It is much, much more difficult, but your player’s user experience is paramount to your game’s success. Do this from the beginning, and you’ll have less work in the long run.” - Chaotic_Cody
“Know your audience. It’s good to make games that you would play yourself, but it’s also good to know that the games you would play today might not be the same games you would play 4-5 years ago.” - SirMing
“If you make a game that you would enjoy playing, you will be a lot more motivated to go through with it until completion.” - B_rcode
Be sure to check out the featured games before the sort is updated with new games:
SirMing: Action!
SteadyOn: Clueless
B_rcode and Digital_Boy: Book of Monsters
Chaotic_Cody: Multi Pong 2
NicholasDev: Salvage
Davidii: Eclipses
thunder1222: Flying Fortress Tycoon
PlantChampion: Ore Tycoon 2
RickyTheFishy and AlreadyPro: Fairy World
ColdDeveloper and SirDoomKnight: Ro-Island
Babymariobebe and Beartikal: Dare to Cook
