As you probably know, World War one was a war of attrition, trenches, and blood. I am wanting to create a showcase/roleplay/story game based on life in the trenches of both sides of the war including no-mans-land, among other areas. Now on to my question.
How far could I go without breaking TOS?
Now, I already know not to push it to its limits, as that can be disastrous. But I want to try and keep the game as realistic as possible without getting in any trouble. I would rather not hear things like “Don’t add blood and guts everywhere”, etc.
What I’m thinking:
The game, as I said, will mostly focus around life in the trenches, so it would include some of the following:
Rats
Dead soldiers
Sleeping soldiers
Wounded
Gas “attacks” (Possibly)
Decomposing bodies, bodies in Barbed wire, etc (No man’s land in a nutshell)
Dead animals (such as horses)
Shells that hit the trenches, possibly killing the player.
Blood, skeletons, etc.
I hope this topic is as descriptive as it can be, I apologize if it is not. Please put any questions below.
I would love to hear suggestions for the game as well. However, I am going to ask you to only suggest if you know what you are speaking about.
Because Roblox is designed for kids, it could be? It sounds really good but it could freak out many younger users. I don’t know if this is possible, but you could restrict the game so only players who are 13+ could play it. It sounds like a really original, and cool game concept though! I hope you find my advice useful
EDIT: If there isn’t too much blood it might be fine.
To address your points, here are my suggestions!
Rats shouldn’t be an issue, I don’t see why that would push the ToS at all. Same for sleeping soldiers. Dead animals push it slightly, however hopefullly that will stay in-bounds.
What could be troublesome includes dead soldiers, wounded, decomposing bodies and shells.
dead soldiers, wounded and decomposing bodies could be fine, as we have FNAF:SR, which includes a decomposing body inside a spring lock suit. Shells should be ok, just look at Super Bomb Survival.
Definitely leave gassing out. It already has a bad stigma due to WW2, and if you want to let this take place earlier on (before 1915) you’re not leaving out anything historically.
But that was comparing existing games. If we look at the ToS, it states:
Overly violent content and/or content related to tragic current events or circumstances. We do not allow such content, including:
Atrocities, massacres, and other shocking real (or pseudo-real) world events; and
Extreme violence, physical or psychological abuse.
In my honest opinion, people have pushed the ToS so far that it has become almost obsolete. The only times games ever get deleted are the rare occasions where games take it too far or the moderation team screws up again. I would just leave it at a low graphic leaves and keep them brief. Or even better, allow it to be turned off. Some people that I know don’t take gore too well, and not sure they’d enjoy the game as much if they had to play through a bloodbath. Anyway, your game seems like a really cool concept and if you ever finish it I’d love to play it!
Hope you found this helpful!
P.S. I left skeletons out because we totally don’t have a skeleton on the Catalog Avatar Shop.
You’re in a much safer place since your game is centered around WWI instead of WWII. Generally with all games like this, try to keep violence and gore to a minimum, however keep realism as high as you’d like.
I feel like this could be a deal-breaker as you’re dealing with some traumatic sights visible to the player. Try to keep the horrors of the battlefield out of the trenches out of it if it contains scary imagery.
About gas attacks, I probably should have stated. It would really only appear as a green/yellow cloud in the middle of no man’s land, it wouldn’t appear in either trench or hurt any players. As I know this would be for sure breaking TOS as you stated @RobotTerrarian
Also, for anyone that might somehow getting it mixed up. The holocaust was not during WW1. That is not the “gassing” I’m talking about.
i don’t see why not? just don’t overuse the gore, don’t put it at every turning corner or it would be classed as violent (especially the decomposing and dead soldiers).
The decomposing/dead soldiers would mostly be in no-man’s-land as the trenches were typically better. Of course I wouldn’t make it something like the Somme, where there are dead everywhere on the feilds. That would not be allowed, no doubt. Thanks for the reply!
For those of you interested in the game, I’ve begun here. It should give you some insight to what it should begin to look like, if you have any questions or suggestion, please ask/post.
I’ve made extremely gory games in the past, so I do have experience with how far you can go with this and I have information on TOS.
Your description is a bit vague in terms of realism. Is it blocky, low poly, med-poly textured, or realistic? How much gore and detail is there?
If it gets to med-poly textured with enough gore, I would remove the following:
Decomposing soldiers. Just use bodies.
Dead animals (in the case that they have spilled guts or some other open wound)
I’m honestly not sure what I would rate the poly on it (Besides for sure not low-poly or blocky) I’m assuming it’s going to be more of the mid-poly catagory.
As of right now, I’m still working on the British frontline trench. But I’d like to hear suggestions on what I could improve with meshes, etc. inside of the trenches
As for the bodies and animals:
Decomposing bodies would be probably closer to part of the skeleton showing with the body,
Dead animals, probably just something like a horse mesh, possibly similar to the decomposing bodies for one that would have been out a while.
They would most likely be roblox skeletons.
Recently deceased soldiers would just be normal decorated (As in uniform, helmet, gear) rigs on barbed wire and laying in NML.
Depends of how they are dead, if there’s normal blood, ok, but if we can see inside the soldier, like the heart, or organs, this wouldn’t be good.
It’s allowed lol
Yeah, there are Roblox faces with wounds.
I think there are games with gas attacks, so you are allowed to do this.
Could you explain this a bit more, please?
Yeah, there’s a camping game where you kill a pig, so i think this is allowed.
Yeah i tihnk this is allowed.
If Room 2 (Doom 2 but in roblox) is published and there’s no moderation at, then you can use all the blood you want, but i recommend you to don’t use too much blood, you can use skeletons, otherwise, there wouldn’t be skeleton bundles.
Well, i think you can make this game, but i recommend you to make your game a bit more child friendly to prevent problems in the future. Thanks for reading.
The ground in your picture could be a bit more realistic. From what I recall maybe add water and mud within the trench. You could also fill it with garbage and leftovers from soldiers.
I haven’t finished the game and am no where close to even finishing the frontline trench, I’ve only been working about an hour on the entire game.l
I do plan on adding stuff like this throughout the trenches, along with duck boards as the main path.
Welp, as far i know your game obviusly its not for xbox players so dont add xbox support. I also recommend you to try to read the TOS and be realistic, Roblox is designed mostly for kids so you prob going to have problems if u dont censor some content of the game. For suggestions, keep informed about the ww events so you can historicaly adapt the scenario successfully (for example, tanks appear later in the war, not in the earlies days)
Actually, now that I think about it. Isn’t there a way to also make games playable for 13+ accounts? I believe it’s possible with a script but not sure. I already know certain boundaries for the game, adding people being literally being shredded by shrapnel, or dismembered, etc. would obviously not be allowed, and I know that.
Also, you don’t have to inform me too much on the war, I’m studying to (hopefully) become a military historian, mainly focused on the 20th century .
OK then i wish ur best in that career, i also like history of the 20th century lol, now about the age restrictions i never hear anyting like that on Roblox, you prob have to talk with some staff members or search information about blocking underage people from ur game, after all i dont know about scripting to much (specially because its really hard to me to understand the damm code lines)
I think the game sounds quite cool. There is a way where you can get account age but that isn’t very helpful since we want anybody over 13 to play. When I played your game I was quite excited to see the rats and sleeping soldiers (LOL) but I realised it wasn’t finished. I think the idea of attacks, e.g. gas attacks and shells, is ok however maybe decomposing bodies is way too much. Nobody wants to see a year old dead body XD. Btw are you gonna add chlorine for the gas attacks? That’s what was used. You could make it yellow to show this.
There would be multiple types of gases for the gas attacks, seeing as many were used. Mustard gas, chlorine gas, Phosgene gas, Benzyl bromide, etc. Basically it would just be a colored fog that drifts over the map. I will hopefully be able to find a way to make the players equip a gas mask during that time.
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