Spotlight #003
DevForum Spotlight: Meet SamsonXVI
Boasting over 92,000,000 visits, @SamsonXVI is the creator of the very popular game series Camping.
Recently SamsonXVI released Camping 2, a sequel to the original Camping game. Camping 2 peaked at over 43,000 concurrent players and reached #3 on Popular in less than an hour. Camping 2 recieved over 7 million visits on the 2nd day of release. These numbers are very impressive!
Both Camping and Camping 2 have a like ratio over 90%.
SamsonXVI agreed to show me a look into how it all started, some of his motivation for developing, and also a sneak peek into what’s coming next for Camping 2!
How did you initially get interested and involved in Roblox development, and what is it about Roblox development that captivates you?
My interest in Roblox development was sparked by my desire to see my ideas come to life in a virtual world. My first developing experience was as simple as experimenting with my 2012 “Happy Home” using the stamper tools, and creating an extension to the house. Seven years later, I’m able to build detailed maps that more closely match the ideas in my head, and writing code that allows me to controls the laws I want for my universe. Roblox is an amazing platform and allows you to create anything you desire and as you build upon your skills your options become infinite!
What are some hardships you have overcome to get to the point where you are now?
The most memorable struggles that I endured while learning to create games on Roblox lie in my slow paced learning of the Lua language. I came to Roblox with just a small knowledge of “Drag and drop” programming. When I needed a script for my game I turned straight to the toolbox and looked for library scripts. I managed to sort of get what I desired by tweaking the script a bit. I slowly began learning the basics of the language. Changing properties, making references to objects, loops, conditions, etc. As I improved I slowly expanded on my limitations. I eventually learned that the strongest hardships were the bugs that kept you up until 4:00 AM. Fortunately, those were also the most rewarding.
Do you have any advice for aspiring developers?
Just keep swimming. Sure there might be some faster or slower ways to become a better developer, but what matters more than the pace you work at, is that you don’t stop. Keep trying to create new things. Every thing you make should contain traces of what you learned before combined with new knowledge. Learning the tools to create games doesn’t come overnight, but anyone can do it!
In the past, many developers have said that Roblox has had profound impacts on their lives - has it had any impact on yours?
Roblox provided me with the tools to learn on both technical and creative levels. If It had not been for Roblox I would have never ended up learning to code. Now I’m proficient in multiple coding languages. It has also provided me with an amazing way to express my creativity. Seeing my ideas come to life was something I actually loved even before Roblox. I loved drawing pictures, origami, Lego, creating simple games on the Scratch platform, and creating stop motion animations with clay. Ultimately, Roblox has offered me the power to create so much more than a pack of markers, piece of paper, connectable blocks, a 2D platform for coding basics, or anything I can animate with clay.
How did you originally think of the idea for Camping?
This is actually one of my favorite stories to tell! A few years ago, one of my friends on Roblox pranked me by telling me I was going to be fired from his group for something I didn’t do! The office building we created for the group was surrounded by trees, and later on we decided to drive into this forest of trees with a car. Once we were out in the forest, I started using admin commands to try to scare everyone in sneaky/funny ways to get revenge. At that moment I realized it would be much cooler if I had written up a script in a game to generate an unexpected jumpscare with a monster in a place that seemed like a fun camping game. After creating this I imagined what it would be like playing it and figured it could be better if I extended the story and maybe added a cool ending. I created 3 nights with obstacles, and when it was finally ready I played the game with 11 friends! We had so much fun, but the game wasn’t intended to function as a real Roblox game. I needed to be there to start the round, the lobby and game were in the same place so you had to wait and spectate when you died, the map was horrible, the game had bugs, it wasn’t scripted with Filtering Enabled, and I had no expectations for the game to succeed on a mass scale. So after this silly and sophisticated prank for revenge I went back to game development and created Infection. My first game that was partially successful, and the first game that I ever had a few people regularly playing. It was then that I started taking game development more seriously, and I decided it might be a cool idea to try to recreate the camping story I had made. I had never seen any “story games” on Roblox and figured it just might have not been the correct “type of game” to get popular, since it was so different. However, I still wanted to create it to see how it would perform. After finishing and releasing the game with no expectations I was shocked to see 15k people playing my game at the same time, and it reaching #10 in popular!
Were you surprised with the success of Camping 2?
I figured that camping 2 would be at least as popular as the original camping was during its release. Many people were asking for a part 2, and I had also built up a ton of hype for the game with the countdown timer in the Camping 1 lobby with fireworks and allowed people to teleport directly to the game when the countdown reached 0. I was really surprised to see the game reach #3 in popular and peak at 43k concurrent players without sponsoring at all!
Can we get a sneak peek into what’s coming next for Camping 2?
I’ll likely be adding a few more obstacles, another ending, minor gameplay changes, and working hard on bugfixes! After this, I plan to continue making story games. They might not necessarily be camping themed but I am by no means done with the story game genre.
Thank you SamsonXVI for showing us a sneak peek into your new game, and giving us a behind-the-scenes look at how you came to be a developer, and how your games came to be!