Spotlight #011
DevForum Spotlight: Play Emergency Response: Liberty County
Your town echoes with the sound of sirens blaring in the distance. These sirens are being used by the many men and women who protect our towns and cities, and put their lives on the line to keep them safe.
But now, it’s your turn to keep them safe.
Emergency Response: Liberty County is an emergency services roleplay game. Play as a civilian, criminal, transportation worker, police officer, sheriff’s deputy, or firefighter! Police, fire, and DOT roleplay simulator.
Today you will get a glimpse into the Emergency Response: Liberty County game, aswell as get to meet the 2 developers who created this masterpiece. Those 2 developers are @mrfergie and @Shawnyg!
How did you initially get interested and involved in Roblox development, and what is it about Roblox development that captivates you?
Like most other developers on the platform, I started Roblox development by playing Roblox. I joined in 2010, and I played with my one of my friends in real life. I played a bunch of police games, and I eventually tried building and scripting my own police cars and firetrucks. Over the years it snowballed into me making an entire emergency services roleplay game from the ground up (albeit with help). I would say this is also what captivates me the most – the ease of going from playing game to making games on Roblox.
How did you originally think of the idea for Emergency Response: Liberty County!
Well, like I mentioned in the previous answer, I was interested in playing police and firefighter roleplay games. Not to sound too boastful, but none of the emergency games on Roblox were really great – so I made my own! I know the space very well because I myself was a player of games in the genre. I knew what other games were lacking and what I wanted to see in such a game. Thus, Emergency Response: Liberty County was made to be the all-around best emergency services roleplay game on Roblox.
In the past, many developers have said that Roblox has had profound impacts on their lives - has it had any impact on yours?
Most definitely! Roblox has become my only job. I knew when I made my game that it was going to be a hit. I just didn’t expect it to be nearly this big! I have been able to move into my own place and fully support myself. My developers have also had profound positive impacts on their lives. Other than finances, Roblox has encouraged me to pursue a degree in Computer Science at a university. I am currently a senior.
If you had any advice for new developers, what would it be?
You have to have a passion for what you’re doing. I spent over a year just developing ER:LC before anyone ever played it. I would sometimes spend 12 or more hours a day building or scripting. I didn’t have much help at the time, either. If I didn’t like making things like this on Roblox, or if I didn’t have the discipline to work on it for hours every day, I certainly wouldn’t have made it this far. Also, there’s plenty of recourses on the internet if you don’t know how to do anything – from coding to social media marketing. I spent almost as much time researching game development and production as I did actually making the game.
Some of the features in your game seem really difficult to create, what did you find to be your biggest challenge while creating Emergency Response: Liberty County?
The biggest challenge while creating ER:LC would have to be our private server system. Currently, Roblox does not offer VIP servers for paid access games, however we had a growing demand for private servers to further enhance the roleplay experience for private communities. Our current system allows you to join a private server via a 5 letter code, and the server owner is given different settings/commands to alter the gameplay experience to their liking. This overall system took weeks of different testing as we were moving to our web server for our primary data saves, as opposed to Roblox DataStores.
Are you a first responder, or have any plans to become one in your near future?
I do have a lot of interest in the emergency services, but I am not a first responder myself. I actually planned to be a firefighter for a long time, but game development took all of my time. However, we do have many first responders in the community. Our Community Manager LostInfinity is an EMT, developer Infectalite works at a fire department, and many of our testers and moderators are first responders. Huge thanks to them!
What are some hardships you have overcome to get to the point where you are now?
The biggest one would have to be self-discipline. It’s not always fun or easy to do what needs to be done – especially when you are your own boss. The main trait that keep the super successful above the rest is their performance. You have to dedicate 200% of your time and effort to stay on top. If you aren’t willing to do that, someone else is – and they will be on top.
This game seems very unique in the style of roleplay that it possesses. Are you proud of the roleplay communities that have formed because of your game?
We’re very proud of the roleplay communities. Games like ours that don’t have a strict group or application process to join a law enforcement team are faced with the challenge of “fail roleplay” (FRP). The way we prevent this is by allowing users to create their own Private Servers (in addition to game mechanics). This allows players to form roleplay groups and roleplay in their own servers without being bothered. We once tried to create our own groups for the fire and police teams, but we realized the community is actually better at doing that than we are. We encourage our players to create their own groups and communities to roleplay in our game using Private Servers.
Thank you so much to mrfergie and Shawnyg for giving us an insider look to their lives as developers, aswell as some behind the scenes information on their game Emergency Response: Liberty County!
Make sure to check out Emergency Response: Liberty County for yourself here!
