Robeats

Posted by SPOTCO on April 2017

Working on a MMO rhythm game (tentatively called "Robeats") on Roblox for a few months.
I wanted to do a rhythm game done right - social, "Roblox-y" and lots of retention/monetization hooks.
There have been a couple other rhythm games done on Roblox (like Rhythm Master by Xsitsu). None of them have been particularily successful either in monetization or popularity - this is something I hope to change.

My general idea is to something similar to the successful (in Japan) Idolmaster/Love Live mobile games:
Simple rhythm gameplay as the core, supported by RPG-ish progression.
My goal is to also have a ELO grind as the "core game". This is a model that's been shown to work (Clash of Clans, Hearthstone, etc) but hasn't really "happened" in Roblox yet.

Since starting, I've been regularly posting devlog updates on twitter.

It all started as a hackweek project. Here's what we had after a week.
Worked on gameplay polish over Christmas vacation.

more UX work #ROBLOXDev pic.twitter.com/PpMRo4NWoA
— spotco (@spotco) December 30, 2016

Early lobby concepts:

super early blocked-out city for scale/sizing by @JoshWongArt. how's this compared to the concept art? #ROBLOXDev pic.twitter.com/Tj6X4kVMYh
— spotco (@spotco) January 6, 2017

Early lobby work:

another lobby work in progress shot #ROBLOXDev pic.twitter.com/iwMtRVTN8C
— spotco (@spotco) January 14, 2017

Central tower work:

new building design by @JoshWongArt , looking amazing! #ROBLOXDev pic.twitter.com/ArdEDOdw9n
— spotco (@spotco) January 27, 2017

Arena

beautiful retractable-dome environment by @JoshWongArt, wait till you see it in action #RobloxDev pic.twitter.com/x5yvpIJ4Rw
— spotco (@spotco) February 4, 2017

More gameplay work and re-adding 2D crowd:

Added crowds back in. They'll dance in sync when in FEVER mode. Loads from your friends & very performant now :) #ROBLOXDev pic.twitter.com/N4VW8bEACu
— spotco (@spotco) February 21, 2017

Park + city

Cityscape. Pretty similar to the concept art. @JoshWongArt #ROBLOXDev pic.twitter.com/H7H8q0Mp9v
— spotco (@spotco) March 17, 2017

City/park work

bunch more cityscape improvements by @JoshWongArt , explorable soon! #ROBLOXDev pic.twitter.com/u1PhnVK8po
— spotco (@spotco) March 26, 2017

Had Zappy00 come on and do some dance animations + song mappings.

New map by @StormCrystalite - Pop Culture by Madeon #ROBLOXDev pic.twitter.com/PqfZl1GnSF
— spotco (@spotco) April 12, 2017

Working on new UI styles.

Working on new UI reskins by tom. You'll be seeing these ingame soon! #ROBLOXDev pic.twitter.com/coPgaKBO5E
— spotco (@spotco) April 27, 2017

Still in progress. Hopefully done (a v1 release) by the end of the summer.
Thanks to: Josh (2D and 3D art), Tom (2D UI work) and zappy00 (animations and song mapping).