As a father of children who play on Roblox I found myself becoming more and more curious about creating games. Especially becomes so many of the ones my kids pushed me into playing were mind-boring. I gave it a try a year back and I’m being sucked into a low level of games development because it’s a lot of fun for someone who enjoys coding and creativity.
As I got into creating some small games I realized that the bigger projects are serious – they are being created and managed by experienced professionals in many cases. I noticed that many games use some fundamental basics seen in many games, on other platforms, not just Roblox. I need to learn from those games and put all the best bits into each of the games I create.
This post will serve as my own guide so that I take everything into account when planning a game. I’m not a games developer so I’d probably forget something important along the way, so I’m trying to increase my chances of creating a highly successful game.
Roblox Badge System
I already knew about the Roblox badge system before coming across Military Warfare Tycoon by forcetower, but the importance of badges became very clear when I saw the image below.
The above collection of badges are just some of the total badges that players can earn in Military Warfare Tycoon but these are the main, all-year (none seasonal) badges.
Fundamental Approach on Badges
The badge system is an easy to use system and to not use it properly is a fail. I say this because the example game above uses the badge system exactly as intended – an incentive to play. Many games try to do this but there is often a small group of three badges or the badges aren’t in a series like the military ones above.
The fundamental approach is to create a series of progressive badges that encourages play. Those badges must be very clear to players to have any effect and forcetower’s approach is perfect – just an image on the games page. Forcetower also creates seasonal badges (shown below) which are more applicable in a highly successful game but worth remembering.
Money Makers
Anyone with as many kids as me. Will have been dragged into enough Roblox tycoon games to know there is an over-used approach, involving conveyor belts. They usually have a machine at one end, dropping cubes onto the belt, which then move into a portal and vanish. It’s not very immersive or realistic and I’d say 4 in 5 tycoon games use this approach.
Perishable Money Makers
Kingdom Tycoon, takes a different money-making approach than conveyor belts. In this clever game, players will establish a village and then establish defenses. As shown in the image below, the player also gets to plant crops and each field of crops generates money over time.
Players unlock new crops, each crop is more expensive than the previous but brings in a big profit too. Each crop has a different timer, until the field vanishes and must be re-built.
Basic to Advanced Money Makers
I’m not going to go through every approach designed in Roblox tycoon games. Especially because 1 in 5 use a truly unique approach that is often based on the environment players are put in i.e. creating pizzas for a pizza restaurant, before putting them on a conveyor belt!
The key thing to note is the ability to easily replace the conveyor belt or integrate it into a bigger procedure that makes sense. It’s not difficult and it will put a game in the category of tycoon experiences that aren’t clones of places (maps) done hundreds of times already.
More fundamentals will come soon.
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