Hey Devforum! This is my first post in the Community Tutorials area and I would highly appreciate feedback. There might be some things you might not agree with, if so, speak your mind or find a solution that best fits your needs. Enjoy the tutorial, thanks!

The Beginners Guide To All Things Game Development

Preface

Hey! We are going to cover almost every aspect of game development

in ROBLOX

I am a jack of all trades so I do not possess the amount of experience you have in your field. If you are an expert in whatever field I cover, feel free to critique and offer feedback, both the community and I would appreciate it. Also, I will not cover the salary’s or average pay for each field as I feel developing for the sole purpose of making money is bad which i will showcase under Topic 4. Also if you need inspiration, watch

this

, this was the reason i joined ROBLOX and became a developer

General

specific field , topics like touch .

1. Start Small

Yes, you are going to hear this alot development career . I is knew knew I is wish wish colleagues told . harsh reality is is goingfail multiple times before you make anything big. Too many new developers come in with the mindset that they are going to make the next Jailbreak or Adopt Me, when I started back in 2013, I thought I was going to make GTA on ROBLOX. If you take a look at any of my games, you can see that that never became a reality. In fact, since 2013, I’ve only released 3 games of my own. I’m going to repeat it once more start _small (see what i did there? ). Projects I highly recommend to start with are

• Obbys
• Very simple tycoon using a kit
• Simple round based game .
• FPS gun kit
• GUI Scripting
• Shop System

These types of games are easy to make and cover most aspects of development, so you can get a taste of each field and what you would like to specialize in.

2. Its ok to use free models

Disagree with me here but I find it very acceptable to use free models, that is as a beginner of course. Some of the biggest developers on ROBLOX started off with free models e.g.

” I started by learning how to build and code in Lua on Roblox Studio by finding free models that had scripts I could modify. One of the models I found was a space gun. I saw where in the code it created the bullet, so I tried making it bigger and it looked like a dodgeball! Later, I created a map with two sides and scripted a round system where players would be teleported to the game and given dodgeballs. That’s how I started to create my first dodgeball game.(https://blog.roblox.com/2018/02/built-city-interview-alexnewtron/)

I used to call myself the professional free model editor, because I would be able to take a free model and transform it into something unrecognizable from the original model. As long as you edit the models and provide credit where its due, it is totally reasonable to use them.

3. Do not jump on the bandwagon

This is controversial one but nevertheless, I believe it needs to be said. The bandwagon in the ROBLOX development community are games like “Difficulty Chart Obby”, “Simulator”, “Clickers”, and “Champions” type of games. These type of games flood the games page and oversaturate the market, there are way too many that follow the same pattern. Click to get money, use that money to get more money, rinse and repeat. There is no reward for this. It’s mindless time killing. There truly is not any innovation in the creation of these games.

Keep in mind some of the games on here have lots of time and effort put into the development of them, I do not mean to offend you, and I am not attacking you, but merely pointing out a trend that is getting out of hand. I truly want to see original and innovative game ideas again.

4. Be passionate about your work

Many developers start out very ambitious, with grand ideas for games, but soon discover that their idea may not become reality. Don’t let that get to you. If you are passionate about what you do, you will do great work. To quote Steve Jobs

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

There are many developers who create for the sole purpose of making money. It is true that sometimes these people succeed, but they are the reason simulators and clicker games invaded ROBLOX. Creating because you have a passion for it will often show as players will often have as much fun playing your experience as you have creating it. Do not let the phrase “Powering Imagination” get thrown down the hole!

5. Take breaks and don’t overload yourself

one is is truly passionate . Believe , I is was known developer contractor . all is crashed crashed repuation destroyed reason , mental health . I is overworked overworked especially 15 year old worked treated like adult , honest , smart , brain nt nt set things , emergency mental health treatment middle commission , turned indirectly scammer . Destroyed reputation , regret path everytime . , focus ego development . love , work toll brain .

Graphic Designer

I am starting with this field because it is often the “easiest” to get into. It is a field that is easy to start but extremely hard to master. It is the first part of development I tried out.

General

Graphic Design is a broad area of development and the topics below are the ones I feel I have enough knowledge to explain. (if you would like to contribute to a section I did not cover, send a PM to me on DevForum)

Things to know

Color Theory
Color Theory is is hard explain , according colormatters.com ” basic categories color theory logical useful : color wheel , color harmony , context colors . ” Color Theory is is create mood game art . colors like blue create calm , sad environment , red cause game art piece look suspenseful “ angry ” . colors brings life creations , that is is black white represent “ old ” “ lifeless ” .
Color Theory, even a basic understanding of it can help in the long run. You do not want your art to look like this

You can read more about color theory

here

, lazy ( like ) advantage

https://coolors.co/

. This site is legendary, as you can easily produce color schemes without any knowledge of color theory. It even provides the HEX color codes, rgb, and HSL. You can even export into a pdf or image to use for your branding and color needs.

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 512 512" style="height: 512px; width: 512px;"><g class="" transform="translate(0,0)" style="">
<path d="M445.1 22.93c-3.8.11-7.9 1.81-11.5 5.98C379.2 107.6 318.8 184.7 257.3 261.4c2.3.9 4.5 1.9 6.5 3.1 4.5 2.5 8.4 5.6 11.7 9C339 197.6 401.3 121.1 455.6 40.87c4.3-9.84 1.1-13.83-3.8-16.4-1.2-.65-2.6-1.13-4.1-1.37-.8-.13-1.7-.19-2.6-.17zM63.14 46.41c7.69 13.5 16.6 26.49 2.25 47.15 10.45-10.72 22.95-21.51 42.41-1.4-4.2-10.17-17.26-17.99-6.1-33.71-17.06 8.58-25.86 0-38.56-12.04zM267.2 94.02c-7.4 11.08-18.3 14.68-32.6 10.28 14.3 4.9 21.5 14.5 17.7 31.7 8.3-15.5 18.1-21.4 29.5-17.1-6.4-6.3-17.3-7-14.6-24.88zm181.5 46.78c-4 22.5-6 45.9-43.2 50.9 22.9.8 48.1 3.7 51.7 46.2 5-15-3-37.8 25.6-41.3-28.6-10.4-30.7-29.2-34.1-55.8zm-358.92 96c2.1 24.8-8.1 41.4-37.08 45.6 29.38 3.7 44.88 15.4 45.88 35.5 5.62-13.5-.7-30.8 28.72-36.8-22.1-5.2-34.82-19.7-37.52-44.3zm155.42 39.7l-13.4 16.6c1.5.8 3 1.7 4.5 2.6 4.4 2.8 8.7 6.1 12.3 9.8l15.2-18c-2.3-2.7-5.4-5.4-8.9-7.4-3-1.7-6.3-3-9.7-3.6zM208 304.1c-.8 0-1.5 0-2 .1-1 .2-1.5.5-1.7.7l-.5.6-.6.4c-46.9 36-117.06 70.7-173.97 104.3 14.77 4.4 29.83 9.7 44.58 15.6l36.39-30.5L88.37 432c17.03 7.6 33.43 16.2 48.03 25.6l27.3-43.8-12.2 54.2c9 6.7 17 13.8 23.8 21.1 27.2-59.1 63-100.2 67.7-154.8l.1-.6.1-.6c.6-2.3-.2-5.7-3.1-10-3-4.2-7.9-8.7-13.4-12.2-5.4-3.4-11.5-5.8-15.9-6.5-1.1-.2-2-.3-2.8-.3zm111.2.2c9.7 13.1 9.9 25.8-4.7 38.3 17.6-8.2 30.3-7.2 37.8 3.6-1.7-9.4-11.1-16.8 3-30.4-14 4.8-26.1 1.2-36.1-11.5zm56.7 90.8c11.7 17.4 20 29.5 4.1 47.8 23.4-10 29.5 7 41.2 13.8-19.9-26.8-2.6-39.3 14.1-49.5-30.5 12.8-44.4-.3-59.4-12.1z" fill="#fff" fill-opacity="1" stroke="#ffffff" stroke-opacity="1" stroke-width="5">
</path></g></svg>

Tools
Some amazing tools that are either completely free or open source are:

https://www.photopea.com/ -Photopea is a free alternative to photoshop that offers the base components of photoshop and all of it can be done in your web browser.

Game Designer

Game Designer is is title people understand , role ” Game Designer ” actually knowing .

General
Everyone has a little bit of a game designer in them. Every person has atleast once had a really cool game concept or idea. Most of them don’t act on it, but the ones that do are the ones who usually change the industry and how we see video games as more of an art than a piece of technology. There is more to game design than most people think. Game Designers often do tons of research, concept and prototype creation and lots of writing.

Research
As a game designer, you must know your market. Who are you making a game for? Who are the people you are catering to? What makes your game stand out compared to the others? Often game designers read or create a case study. These can be complex or simple depending on how in depth you go. A very simple one would be of ROLVe Community’s Arsenal. Arsenal is a “Gun Game”. You rack up kills, every kill you get a new weapon, there is usually a cap with how many weapons you cycle through before there is a winner. In Arsenal’s case, that (I believe) is 32. Why do people come back to arsenal and why do people find my game not worth another visit? Arsenal has linear gameplay, which means there is a set end goal and all players are usually given the same set of tools, in Arsenals case. One important concept in game design is rewards. Every person plays a game for the same reason, to get something in return. That can be many different things, a fun way to kill time, monetary benefit, the pride, it comes in all shapes and sizes. For Arsenal, the reward is the in game currency and “clout”. Games like arsenal are highly competitive and that keeps players coming. They want to be the “best”, when they have over 800 wins, that comes with a sense of pride. the in game currency adds to that as it comes with wins, in which the currency can be used to buy cool items and accessories. Another game with great game design is dark souls. The game was purposely made to be extremely difficult. This daunts beginners and pros alike, what makes dark souls great is the rewards. It isn’t monetary nor item driven, but pride driven. When a player defeats a boss that they have spent the past 2 hours trying to beat, they freak out. They’re pride and ego go above the roof. they get what us gamers call an “epic gamer moment” (don’t hurt me ) or an “OMG” moment. When a player has no reason to play your game over another, that’s when you encounter bad game design.

Writing
We are slowly reaching an era where GDD’s (Game Design Documents) are fading away. Actually, lots of ROBLOX developers don’t even know what a GDD is. A GDD is an amazing way to document key game features, art style, characters, and monetization. It is also an amazing way to show off your game idea to investors or potential publishers or external developers. Creating a GDD is great for solo developers, but is nothing but awesome for development teams. If you bring on a new person onto your team, the GDD should suffice, of course, catching them up with other tools is good too. Creating more ambitious and great user experiences is usually a team effort, which is why when you write a GDD, you often want it to be open to all parts of the development team. Every person on your team has valuable input that you may of never thought about. A great product that promotes collaborative writing and is (mostly) free is Google Docs. It is easy to share and collaborate in.

Collaboration
There are many roadblocks that come with collaborative game development. Creating a product that was not up to the standard or deadline expected is one. To be honest, I do not have enough professional experience to do this piece justice, but TechSpectrum definitely does. For a more in depth look at the collaboration piece of game design, check out his post Game Design Theory: Project Management with DevOps, Analytics and Pipelines for Successful Games and Productive Teams

Scripter

General
Scripter’s are crucial for a functional user experience. As a scripter you are in charge of programming many different systems and the general framework of the game. Scripting can often be a daunting task and some people stay away from it for that very reason. Although it can be hard, it is often extremely rewarding. Seeing a creation of yours come to life is truly a feeling you can’t get anywhere else.

DevHub
The DevHub is and will be your best friend not just for scripting but for anything roblox development related. Take for example little jimmy.

Little Jimmy has a problem, he is trying to use a script to change the meshid of his sword, but it won’t do anything.

uh oh , Jimmy getting frustrated , fret ! DevHub is has .

Ah, Jimmy now knows you can not edit meshid’s with a script, but how will he solve his problem? That’s where our next hero comes in

DevForum
Yes, I’m deathly aware you are already on devforum reading this, but it’s included because i still feel it is important to use the devforum properly. Little Jimmy wants to fix his problem so he quickly googles “how to change mesh id from code roblox” he finds Is it possible to set a MeshPart to a MeshID through a script?. A very helpful DevForum member points out the same thing DevHub has documented, but he provides a solution, “SpecialMesh”. Jimmy uses it and now his script works.

woohoo! Jimmy now fixed his problem, and at the same time did not clutter the forum. Instead of asking and starting an entirely new thread for a question that’s already been answered multiple times, he simply searched it up and researched the topic. Be like Jimmy.
Tools

https://rojo.space/ – Script in RBXlua using an external IDE
https://github.com/ – Amazing site to find and create open source software and material.
Learn Roblox – Roblox new tutorial based experience .

Learning

Learning how to script is often something you take on by yourself. If you are teaching yourself, its great to set up ground rules so you do not get distracted or demotivated. Starting with Topic 1 (Start Small), create something small, or a project that is extremely specific, lets say in a year from now you want to start developing a racing game. First you would experiment with ROBLOX physics and get used to them, you could make a wacky game using those physics (Rdite) or start creating very basic vehicles. Next you would learn how to script rounds so you can make rounds in your racing game. when you learn these two topics and more, you can combine your experience with those two projects into one. It may sound scary, but its actually not very difficult, almost every piece of code can be explained with this ideology. “If this, then that” we can add a “If this, then that, else do this” also. The only thing hard about programming is learning its syntax and learning how to create readable and efficient code. for example don’t pull a “YandereDev”.

doing this can create extreme lag and take more time than necessary. To understand why, think about what the computer does, it reads the code, like a language. It has to go through every line of code. For every character it goes through all those “if statements”. A more cost efficient way to do this would be to use a function. I will speak in a combination of code and English for this

First we create a function with a name of our choice, mine will be “function eyeColorChange(color)” make sure to put your function before you do any of the stuff im about to do after. you are going to want to make an if statement, “if EyeColor ~= nil then”(~= means not equal to, you can find operators here) after the then, we are going to call the function with eyeColorChange(). we can then have the function grab the color of our characters eyes, and we can use a module script to define our eye colors. Our function will then go and take the value of the eye color we chose and we can use a return to return the value and use that value to change our eye color.(this was done without testing and mostly with just the if then ideology)

Organization

Organization is crucial when it comes to creating any game. You want to make the game easy to edit for you and any other developers sake.

notice how this is messy? The GUI has multiple Frames with the same name, that is an issue when you start to script the UI, as the script cant tell which frame to edit, so it picks the one with a higher priority. This is also the case with the TextLabels. Also our replicatedstorage is messy and our workspace has tons of parts. This is where our best friend Folders come in.

Would you look at that? Our game looks much cleaner. Notice how we didn’t use a Folder in the GUI. Although we

can

use folders in the GUI,

we shouldn’t

as any GUI element hosted in a folder can’t recognize userinput. Try it out yourself and organize the games elements

OrganizeMe.rbxl

(129.8 KB)

Remote Events and Functions
I started to script pre-FilteringEnabled. The FE update broke many games because it was easier to script through the client than to client and server. I gave up after FE because to be honest, RemoteEvents and RemoteFunctions confused me. No matter how many times my developer buddies tried explaining it to me, i still would never get the picture. Even DevHub Confused me, so I’m going to explain how I learned.

The TurboFusion gun kit was extremely popular pre-fe because it was easy to configure and add. But after FE it broke, if you killed someone, it wouldn’t return that they actually got killed. Let’s investigate why:
If you know nothing about client and server models, let me explain it in the easiest way possible. The client is you, that includes all the user interface, sometime particle effects and those semi-transparent parts you see in tycoons. Everything on the client is for your eyes only. To edit clients you use a LocalScript. The server is everything that every client can see, that is usually the map or live GUI changes everyone can see. Now that you understand Client-Server model, take a look at the screenshot provided. As you can see they use a local script to control the entire weapon. Nowadays that is absolute “no-no”, as that since its a localscript, all changes are only seen on the client. What use is a weapon if it does not actually inflict damage? How we solve this is to use remote events and functions. How do we use them? First what we do is insert a remote into “ReplicatedStorage”. We use ReplicatedStorage as both the client and the server can access it. Rename the Remote to whatever you’d like. This remote is going to be the magic bridge between the server and the client. As GUI’s are ClientBased, lets make a very simple gui with a button to create our brick.
heres mine:
(might have gone a little overboard )
Insert LocalScript button . name is matter script matter thing need require remote . we is going going want ReplicatedStorage find remote

local ReplicatedStorage = game:GetService("ReplicatedStorage")
local sendBrick = ReplicatedStorage:WaitForChild("NameOfYourRemote")

We are going to want to send to the remote when our button is clicked. First create a function, and then start that function when the mouse is clicked (functions can not be started without something to trigger it)

function makeBrick()
	
	
end

script.Parent.MouseButton1Click:Connect(makeBrick)

the text inside the () is the name of the function that we want triggered.
now inside our function we need to send a signal to our remote.

function makeBrick()
sendBrick:FireServer()
	
end

the client side is done, now we have to have the server create our brick. Create a regular Script into ServerScriptService. We are going to repeat what we did last time with a few changes.

local ReplicatedStorage = game:GetService("ReplicatedStorage")
local sendBrick = ReplicatedStorage:WaitForChild("SendBrick")

function makeBrick()

end

sendBrick.OnServerEvent:Connect(makeBrick)

this time instead of a mouse click when the server gets notice that the remote has been set off it triggers our function. Now to finish our script, lets make it produce a brick. our full script should look like this

local ReplicatedStorage = game:GetService("ReplicatedStorage")
local sendBrick = ReplicatedStorage:WaitForChild("SendBrick")

function makeBrick()
	local newBrick = Instance.new("Part")
	newBrick.Parent = game.Workspace
end

sendBrick.OnServerEvent:Connect(makeBrick)

Our gui now makes parts . Feel free to see the code in action and edit it to do more advanced things. RemoteEventTest.rbxl (29.0 KB)
learn more about Remotes here.

Further Study

3D Modeler

General
3D Modelers or 3D asset creators, are on the rise due to the increase of developers wanting to be involved in the UGC craze. 3D modelers create meshes that developers import into their games to be used as decoration, landscape foliage, and weapons. Developers prefer meshes over unions as unions can often take a toll on your games performance. To be honest, I am pretty abysmal at 3D modeling so I am not the one to teach you it, but I can redirect you to others who are amazing at it.

Further Study

Composer

General
Composers create the beautiful music that is showcased in multiple games. The music you use can make or break the vibe you are trying to set in your game. Imagine a game like Piggy with NCS music playing. Having OST’s in your game can show dedication and truly create an immersive experience. As a composer, you must have dedication and a good ear. Composing can often be very hard to get into and master, but in the end, it is extremely rewarding. (shameless plug, you can check out my music here Sunshine and Flamingos – Album by SAF | Spotify)

DAW
DAW’s or Digital Audio Workstations are the powerhouse behind your musical creations. Think of it as a game engine but for music production. There are many DAW’s out in the market. I am extremely biased as I am a FL Studio user. Some other great options are Cubase used by hans zimmer and Zedd, Ableton Live used by way too many to list, Bandlab that isnt too mainstream but is free to use, and MixCraft. Please for the love of god, spare yourself and do not use LMMS unless you don’t care about prettiness or efficiency.
Further Study

Building

General

Building is the process of using parts and meshes to create a greater image. Whether that be a map, or a skyscraper. There are many different style of building, but we often categorize it into two styles, Low-Poly and High-Poly. This refers to the amount of polygons in an object, when a map uses strictly low-poly assets, this would be considered a low-poly build, switch the places around and you get high-poly builds. Most often, a 3D modeler often takes the path of a builder too. The two fields interchange and have alot in common.
Further Study

User Interface Design

General
User Interface Design or UI Design, is the creation of UI elements for a product. This can be for websites, software, games, and more. One pet peeve of mine is UI that is completely made in ROBLOX Studio, well only if it isn’t executed well. I’m talking about the “UI Designers” who create things like this:

The use of colors is abused, they don’t match and there are too many fonts that don’t compliment each other.

I is make decent UI designs ?

You is use use studio find easier , external tools prototype create preferable . Creating UI programs like PhotoShop ok , purely raster image – based . you is know know talking check “ Icon Logo Design ” section learn vectors bitmaps . Software is is like Adobe XD Lunacy , increasingly popular UI design tool , use Figma preferable works vector images rescaled size need / desire . Lunacy is is completely free , XD Figma free plan paid ones . programs is have similar UI functions pros cons . want easy prototype creation amazing plug – creation community , choose XD , want advanced tools plugins easy prototyping , choose lunacy , , want best worlds big community plugins open – source file creators , added real – time collaboration niche similar google docs , Figma viable choice .

Further Study

Conclusion

I dedicated many hours to creating this post but I really hope I can make an impact on the community and help foster a new generation of developers. To all you new game developers out there, don’t give up, you are the future of game development and the metaverse. One day you are going to be the one writing a post just like this. Thank you to the
ROBLOX development community for teaching me so many valuable lessons, and I can’t wait for what the future has in store for us -astraran and little jimmy