You’ve probably heard of Roblox by now with how rapidly the platform has grown. As one of the largest online gaming servers, Roblox’s community is widespread. Current players number in the millions, with tens of thousands of new users joining every week.
What’s more, Roblox specifically encourages social interaction. One of its best selling points is that Roblox games are made by players, for players. Users can develop their own games using the company’s game engine (for free!) and subsequently publish them for their fellow Roblox players to enjoy.
This game engine is a platform known as Roblox Studio, and there are very few programs – if any – that can match its power, versatility, and ease of use.
In this blog, we are going to cover everything you’ll need to know on how to make a game in Roblox Studio. We’ll start by going over the basics of installation and towards the end, we’ll take a deep dive into an in-depth free tutorial by one of CodaKid’s expert engineers.
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Table of Contents
I. What is Roblox Studio?
Roblox Studio is a free development program developed and offered by Roblox. It’s described as an “immersive creation engine” that comes equipped with all the tools one would need for coding, building, and developing Roblox games using the Lua programming language. Currently supported by Windows and macOS, Roblox plans to expand the studio’s portability by creating a version for mobile operating systems such as Android and iOS.
II. How Do You Get Roblox Studio?
You can get Roblox Studio for free from their official website. The download and installation process is quick and easy, too.
Roblox Studio Requirements
Make sure your current device meets the minimum requirements:
- For PC – Windows 7 or higher, running IE 11 or higher
- For Mac – macOS 10.11 or higher
- Processor – 1.6 GHz or better
- Memory – at least 1GB of system memory
- Internet Access – this will help keep your software up-to-date and allow you to continuously save your projects to your Roblox account
Roblox Studio Installation
- Simply click this link here and scroll down until you see the “Start Creating” button.
- Click the button. It will prompt the system to search your device for an existing version of Roblox Studio. If you already have the studio installed on your device, the prompt will tell you so. Otherwise, you’ll see a new button in the pop-up window titled “Download Studio.”
- Hit “Download Studio” to begin the setup. The Roblox Studio installer is straightforward and intuitive. Simply follow the on-screen instructions and prompts whenever applicable!
Once you’ve safely installed Roblox Studio, you can launch it via the desktop icon or the dock icon (depending on which you chose during setup).
III. What Script Does Roblox Studio Use?
As you probably know by now, there are dozens of different programming languages. For instance; Python, JavaScript, Java, and C++ are some of the more popular picks, with SQL, PHP, Swift, and TypeScript as some of the lesser-known (but definitely not obsolete!) choices.
Roblox’s choice of programming language is Lua – a script that’s primarily used for games and web applications. It’s also known for being one of the fastest scripting languages available. Roblox’s version is a sandboxed, secure script that prevents malicious code from being run on the client.
Lua isn’t known for being beginner-friendly, but Roblox Studio helps fill any potential knowledge gaps with the Roblox Developer Hub (or DevHub, for short). It has everything one needs to begin creating games in Roblox Studio: in-depth tutorials, helpful resources, 24/7 online assistance, curated API preferences, and more.
Need more hands-on guidance and/or an extensive explanation for creating Roblox games? You can always sign up for CodaKid’s Roblox Coding Courses. Our lessons on Lua programming and game design using the Roblox Studio are ideal for children aged 8 and up.
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IV. What’s so Special About Roblox Studio?
A. Ease-of-Use: Publishing and Updating Games
Roblox Studio is incredibly user-friendly. Game developers and coders can publish new games or update their existing ones with just a couple of keystrokes or a few clicks of the mouse. In fact, you can publish a game immediately after you’ve finished coding it and testing it in the studio! Here’s how simple it is:
Step 1. Click on the “File” tab in the top-left corner of Roblox Studio and select the “Publish to Roblox As…” option.
If you’re publishing a NEW game:
Step 2. Fill up the basic information of your game when prompted.
Step 3. Once you’re finished entering the date, click “Create.” Your game will be published to Roblox immediately!
If you’re updating an EXISTING game:
Step 2. In the bottom-left corner of the “Publish Place” window, you’ll see an option to “Update Existing Game.” Click on it.
Step 3. This will pull up a list of all your published games. Select the one you want to publish the update to.
Once you’re finished, the changes are made available almost immediately to players. Some may not get the changes until the next time they log in or they may be asked to restart their games. Point is, that the downtime is minimal and the actual distribution (or redistribution) process is virtually effortless.
B. An Extensive Community of Supportive Developers
As we mentioned earlier, Roblox is meant to be a social experience. A Roblox game is usually designed to encourage teamwork and cooperative play. Half the fun of Roblox is, in fact, the community. And if you choose to keep to yourself, you’re missing quite a crucial aspect of what makes Roblox so widely loved.
When you join the Roblox community, you join a community of gamers and game developers. You’ll find it’s home to programmers of all ages, skill levels, and backgrounds. And most of them are more than happy to swap tips, test your work, and offer constructive criticism. Most of them may even have successful Roblox games up and running, which makes them more than qualified to provide guidance regarding general game development.
If you’re someone interested in programming, the Roblox community is ripe with like-minded people. It’s the perfect place to ask for suggestions, expand your network, and even form collaborations!
You’ll also find the community to be incredibly supportive. Successful games are met with encouragement. Competition – if any – is minimal and healthy. It’s honestly the perfect place for beginner game developers to gain traction and experience—and for experienced developers to continue to grow.
V. Things to Know Before You Start Building
Roblox studio is genuinely one-of-a-kind. There are very few companies – if any, actually! – that offer the same kind of intuitive, immersive game development and publishing services for free. Here are just points as to why Roblox Studio is so ideal for beginner programmers.
A. Roblox Studio Games are Free to Make and Share
On top of being a highly intuitive programming platform that allows users to make games for free, Roblox Studio also offers unlimited online servers for hosting games at no cost. As long as they’re using the official, licensed studio software from the company, players can create – and share! – any game they want without having to pay first.
All Roblox games are designed for cooperative play. There are very few – if any! – single-player games on the platform. In fact, single-player mode wasn’t supported on Roblox up until a few years ago, as Roblox was initially focused on being a social experience. Ergo, Roblox servers are designed to host free-to-play community games.
What does this mean for budding game developers? It means that you could create a game on Roblox studio, share it via the platform, and have more than a thousand players play it without having to spend a single cent.
Here is a quick trailer of CodaKid’s free Obby tutorial that is presented in the series of instructional videos below. The videos are designed as a fun and effective way to teach coding for kids within the Roblox universe. You can find the rest of these video tutorials in the next section. We hope that you enjoy them!
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B. Roblox Studio Provides an Easy Start to Programming, Coding, and Game Development
Roblox Studio takes care of everything you need to create and share a game. Whether you’re doing it for fun or you’re a budding programmer hoping to make a career out of it, Roblox Studio is an all-encompassing tool that gives you a safe, easy start into the world of game development. You won’t have to worry about investing in-game servers, data storage centers, and programming platforms. You also won’t have to settle the finer details of game creation i.e., graphics, animations, paperwork, licenses, creative commons, and so on.
With it being a one-stop-shop for game developers, Roblox Studio allows programmers to simply focus on the concept and execution of the game, rather than the logistics and red tape.
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C. Millions of Dedicated Players
Roblox was first launched in September 2006. In January 2021, Roblox hit an incredible milestone: 199 million monthly active users—a huge increase from its previous record of 121 million in February 2020. Of this number, estimates put it at roughly 32.6 million daily active users.
What this means is that if you put out a game on Roblox, there is a chance for it to be seen by 32.6 million users in one day. In a month, your game could be shown to 199 million. If even just 0.5% of the daily active users see it, that’s 163,000 potential players for your game.
For new developers, it can be extremely difficult to get even a fraction of this exposure on an independent platform without marketing it in some way (which would be an expense). By using the studio to subsequently distribute your game on Roblox’s platform, you can at least have your game played and/or tested by a few hundred to a few thousand people with virtually no advertising.
VI. Let’s Make Our First Game
In this free Roblox Studio tutorial, the CodaKid team will teach you how to make your own custom Obby course from the ground up using Roblox Studio
and the Lua programming language. For those of you interested in how to use Roblox Studio and how to make a good Roblox game, this is a great place to start!
For those who are new to Roblox scripting, please remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. While we all want to make millions of Robux in our first
week, it’s important that you learn the basics first. You will then be able to move onto more complex games with lots of potential for commercialization.
For those Roblox entrepreneurs who would like to learn how to make Tycoon games, Simulator games, Dodgeball games, Racing games, and Battle
Royale games, check out CodaKid’s award-winning online courses with a free trial here.
Our hope is that you’ll create a custom Obby game that you’ll be proud to show friends and family, and that you’ll continue your Roblox Game Development journey (and perhaps even make some Robux along the way)! Again, if you are interested in further Roblox coding and game development instruction, you can check out CodaKid’s online courses which teach you how to make dozens of Roblox games, including custom Tycoon games, Dodgeball games, Racing courses, Among Us games, Adventure Maps, Speed Simulators, Battle Royale games, and more.
CodaKid has affordable monthly subscriptions with a free trial that also teach students how create Minecraft mods, mobile game apps, 3D games using
Unreal 4 Engine, and custom websites.
And just a heads up (as if it isn’t apparent by our name): CodaKid is an online kids coding academy and the content we are posting are designed for kids
and teens. But even if you are an adult learner you should still find the videos quite useful.
Step 1: Roblox Studio Editor: Basics
Roblox Studio Editor provides game designers with a number of powerful tools. But before we are able to create our very own blockbuster course, it is
important to that we become pros at the basic functionality.
In this Roblox Studio tutorial, we will go over how to shape objects and parts to create visually dynamic environments. You will learn functions such as
Move, Scale, Rotate, and the basics of getting around the Roblox Editor.
We highly suggest that you take your time familiarizing yourself with Roblox Studio’s many navigation buttons and menus. While I think our video does an
excellent job going over the basics, you can check out the Roblox Wiki if you’d like to dig even deeper.
Step 2: Roblox Studio Editor: Going Deeper
In this Roblox tutorial, we will go over how to make your world colorful and unique. You will learn how to create different shaped parts and apply different
materials and properties to your world.
You will also learn how to make parts transparent and how to lock obstacles in place so that your Obby can take shape.
The skills that you’ll learn here can be applied to an almost unlimited number of other games that you can make with the Roblox editor.
We highly recommend that you get really good at the basic here, as this will save you a ton of time as you build future games on Roblox.
Step 3: Roblox Studio Editor: Explorer and Properties Windows
Two of the most important windows in the Roblox Studio Editor are the Explorer and Properties windows. These windows are the key to organizing your game and making complex changes to the different parts you place.
In this video, we’ll learn how to read the information in these windows and use them to create our awesome obby.
Step 4: Roblox Scripting Basics
In order to make your Obby work, you will need to learn basic Lua scripting. Lua is a powerful scripting language that will allow you to make your game
come to life.
Lua has been used to make thousands of popular games and apps and is a great programming language to learn.
Fortunately for you, Roblox Studio has a native, user-friendly text editor that is easy to learn.
In this video, we go over how to add scripts to our game objects. We also give an overview of Lua variables, functions, and how to connect functions to events in our game.
You might also enjoy our breakout video, which is designed to make an important coding concept – a function – easy to understand.
Step 5: Create Our First Script
Lastly, we’ll take everything we learned and use it to create a kill block! These are some of the most popular hazards in any obby, and now you’ll know how they’re made!
While scripting using text-based coding might seem intimidating at first, just take your time and you’ll find that it’s a lot simpler than you think! Lua is quite easy to learn, and is an excellent first language for new game designers. What we especially love about using Lua in Roblox Studio is the excellent
documentation and helpful community.
If you stick with it, you’ll find that Game Development with Roblox using the Lua scripting language is fun and very rewarding.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is making games on Roblox free?
Yes, making games on Roblox Studio is 100% free, and likely will be forever as Roblox wants to encourage creators to make as many cool games as possible. You can download Roblox Studio from the Roblox Studio website here.
2. Do I need to know how to code to make a Roblox game?
To make most games on Roblox, you will need to learn a scripting language called Lua. Lua is a relatively easy programming language to learn, and as your skills improve you will be able to build almost any type of game you can imagine.
3. What is the best way to improve as a Roblox Game Developer?
Roblox Game Development requires the development of game design skills, level layout skills, and Lua scripting skills. As with any skill, getting good at something requires education and practice. There are many free resources on YouTube and other guides (such as the one in this article) that you can use to gain basic skills. You can also consider enrolling in online or in-person classes taught by skilled teachers that can take your development skills to the next level.
Conclusion
There you have it; a brief overview of Roblox Studio – and what sets it apart from other game engines. To recap:
- What is Roblox Studio?
- How Do You Get Roblox Studio?
- What Script Does Roblox Studio Use?
- What’s so Special About Roblox Studio?
- Things to Know Before You Start Building
- Let’s Make Our First Game
Roblox has certainly captured the market with its unique setup and cooperative gaming model. Allowing any player to create and publish games for free is a hugely beneficial feature that, frankly, not many companies can boast of. And developers can even stand to earn from the games they put out using a free development, publishing, and distribution platform.
This is why Roblox Studio continues to be one of the best scripting platforms for both beginner coders and experienced programmers. It caters to all ages, skill levels, and backgrounds. If you or your child is interested in coding, we can’t recommend this platform enough!
Are you ready to take your Roblox experience to the next level? Enroll in Codakid for a free trial.
