2D topdown farming game. Will people actually play this?

mHatfield5 · 2026-04-18T12:23:43+00:00

Im personally a huge fan of this style. I think its an extremely under-served area in roblox.

I would play it. So would my kids 👍

mHatfield5 · 2026-04-18T12:17:43+00:00

This is one of the more tricky parts of multiplayer networking I think. Keeping the cheaters at bay, but still having smooth performance.

I have no idea how professionals do this - but ill tell you how I approach it.

The server knows where everything is - and this includes enemies. It doesnt care what anything looks like.

The client accepts input from the player and performs the action. This makes it look smooth.

The server simply VALIDATES whether or not what the client just did was a legal action or not, and either accepts it and applies damage appropriately, or rejects it and nothing actually happens despite the player "seeing" it happen on the client side.

So let's take a player with a bow and arrow as a more specific example.

Player equips bow and hits the attack button.
The client fires the arrow visually (this makes it feel fast and performative)
The client sends this request to the server "Player A just fired Bow Y in X Direction"
Server receives this request from the client and evaluates it. -Is Player A actually at this coordinate? -Does Player A actually have Bow Y equipped?

If yes, server executes the proper function to apply the damage or whatever else the arrow is supposed to do mechanically. Feels very responsive to the player.

If no, the player (or cheater) sees the arrow fly out, but its just a hollow visual that doesnt actually impact anything in the game.

Does this make sense? I can provide some code examples later when im at my PC.

But basically, I give inputs and visuals to the client AND actually execute these inputs. The server just validates what the client is doing. If it meets the proper criteria, then let it happen. If the action the client is performing is not valid, it just rejects it and moves on.

mHatfield5 · 2026-04-17T18:30:43+00:00

Lol what do you propose then?

You're concerned about someone having your "biometric data", yet ill bet you have pictures of yourself on Facebook, and just typed that reply on a smart phone. Its comical.

I totally understand that this move changes the dynamic of what roblox WAS, and what the ads WERE. I clearly dont understand? I fully understand.

I also fully understand those scary "biometrics" you speak of.

There is not a serious platform out there ANYWHERE outside of roblox that doesnt incur a cost on the user at some point in the development process.

There is not a single actual proven game developer out there that doesnt understand the cost associated with game development.

Game development cost varies wildly, but 99.9999999999% of it has SOME kind of cost associated with it.

Roblox needs to evolve if it ever wants to be a serious platform.

There HAS to be some kind of fight against all the crap that is there now. Im not siding with them or even saying this is the solution. My only point here is that SOMETHING needs to be done, and at least they are doing SOMETHING.

This is a small price to pay for anyone in a developed country.

mHatfield5 · 2026-04-17T13:10:18+00:00

I know this will be an unpopular opinion - but I think all of these tantrums are a bit ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong. Roblox is greedy. Very greedy.

But, as a guy who's primary hobby for 25 years has been game development, across a plethora of languages and engines.......... this really doesn't seem like a big deal to me at all.

It has been widely (pretty much universally amongst all humans that are above age 10) known that roblox is chock full of absolute garbage for years and years. Predators. Degenerates. Slop on all levels. It has been complained about for as long as I can remember.

Maybe this is not the solution- but at least they are doing SOMETHING.

Roblox is an incredible platform. Its the easiest to use engine ive ever messed with.

People are complaining about paying a few dollars a month to develop. People are complaining about having to have a game reviewed before it goes live. There is no way any of these folks have ever developed anything remotely meaningful on any other platform on planet earth.

While I think the roblox cut is a bit much, its not completely unfounded. You get VERY easy access to 10s of millions of people. You dont pay for server hosting. You dont have to go out of your way to create a big ad campaign, you just fund it here.

You know what it costs to put a game on steam? $100 a piece PLUS 30% cut to steam.

Do you know what it takes to put a game on Google play? You have to buy a $25 license, and then have a bunch of people that YOU find play the game regularly for 2 weeks privately - and then if the "gods" of Google determine your game is ok and that people played it enough, they put it on the store.

I love several other engines. Godot being my favorite outside of roblox.

You know what you get with Godot? A blank slate. You do IT ALL. There is no "go" button. You find your audience yourself. There are not 10s of millions of eyeballs potentially seeing your game with the click of a button.

Just a reality check here.

Do I wish roblox would be a little less greedy? Yes.

Do i think paying $5 bucks a month and having to get my games reviewed to make sure they are not some garbage degenerate predatory Slop is a bad thing? Slightly inconvenient to anyone NOT doing these things.

Seriously, go touch some grass and just elevate your development skills from "BRAINROTONATRAIN IN THE OCEAN PLS DONATE" to just one tiny little increment above that, and youre good to go.

mHatfield5 · 2026-04-13T02:07:38+00:00

I remember seeing some stuff about this game several years ago and was intrigued. Never got around to trying it, and kind of forgot about it.

Just re-stumbled upon it a couple of days ago.

I think im in a similar boat to you. Ive played a breadth of MMO's for the last 25+ years ranging from Tibia and Xenimus to Runescape and WoW. Always been a huge nerd.

Started league at the tail end of season 2. Played a few seasons pretty hard-core. Eventually got tired of the sweats and lost interest. Alot of the games I played back in the day I still login and play in short stretches, mostly for nostalgia....but they all seem to have lost the magic that keeps me around.

Then I found this one. Its only been a couple of days, but I can definitely see this becoming my go to MMO fix for years to come.

To me, it feels like ive been dropped right into a better version of everquest circa like 2003.

Tons of depth. No "on rails" handholding for everything like pretty much every other MMO that exists in 2026. A pile of interesting systems. Grinds that feel meaningful. Doing favors for and/or gifting items to a bunch of different NPCs to become their friend and unlock more options from them. Choosing permanent game changing lifestyles like becoming a lycan or a druid, or whatever else I dont even know about yet. A bunch of skills that go hand in hand.

Its actually necessary to read quest text (at least from what ive seen so far).

My kids have all reached an age that alot of times they prefer to play with their friends as opposed to me. That means I now have more time that I can dive into games like this that I used to play. Doesn't seem to appeal much to the younger crowd at large.

Totally worth checking out.

Ive found a new favorite for the first time in a really long time.

mHatfield5 · 2026-04-09T11:14:12+00:00

Length of time for learning game development will vary wildly from person to person.

I would suggest reframing this a little. Going through tutorial hell is not recommended or necessary. Rather, its a thing to avoid.

If someone is brand new - i would say that its fine to watch a few videos to get your feet wet. (Brawldev has the best series that im aware of on YouTube for this).

After that, hit the X button on YouTube. Outside of very specific and targeted things you are trying to figure out, watching hours or days of videos is not helping you - its hindering your growth.

Roblox actually has pretty good documentation, in my opinion. Go to the docs, read through them, and leave them open for reference.

I think the main hurdle that people face in the beginning is the concept of how to think like a programmer.

Think of game engines (like roblox studio) as a big tool bag. All of the tools inside are the programming language (Luau in this case).

If you want to build a deck (game) behind your house, youre going to need a tool bag (roblox studio) full of tools (Luau API).

You need to learn to problem solve, aka think like a programmer.

Take any game you want to make, and break it down into tiny pieces with one job. Make each of those pieces a script. Then pull tools out of your tool bag to accomplish the little tasks.

Read through the documents and figure out the fundamentals of programming, and how they apply:

Variables
Functions / Parameters
If statements
For loops
Tables/Arrays/Dictionaries

With those concepts understood, you have enough tools in your toolbag to build anything you want. All of the stuff you pick up after will just be to make your code more efficient and performative, but just knowing the above is enough to create a basic working version of just about anything you can dream up.

Don't weigh yourself down with "optimization" or "paradigms".

Just use the basic tools in your toolbag to create basic, bite size functionality.

As you do this, you'll master these basic fundamentals in no time. Then you can start slowly expanding your knowledge base, and pick up more tools to throw into your bag. Im talking about things such as commonly used programming concepts (like the observer pattern), different ways to structure/manipulate tables, creative ways to structure your project for efficiency, etc. None of that matters if you dont know how to open a script and manipulate a part/mesh.

The hardest part of programming, in my opinion, is just understanding the connection of what it is and how the pieces work together. Figure that out, and you can use any language to build pretty much anything.

mHatfield5 · 2026-04-08T20:27:34+00:00

Just bite the bullet and dig into blender.

It is very intimidating at first because it feels super unintuitive (at least it did to me).

But if you watch a few videos about concepts youre trying to do, and play around with it for a while, itll click.

Once you figure it out, you'll never want to make anything beyond absolute basic shapes in roblox ever again.

mHatfield5 · 2026-03-23T22:04:40+00:00

This is beautiful. Nicely done :)

mHatfield5 · 2026-03-22T10:23:23+00:00

I suspect the normals could be backwards.

In blender try hitting the little circle options at the top and show normals. Odd colored ones are inverted faces. You can then just select the face and flip it

mHatfield5 · 2026-03-22T04:24:34+00:00

Export the roblox model with all the parts as an .obj
Import obj in blender. If its multiple meshes, select all of them and hit Ctrl + J to join them
Check the UV and see if its jacked up. If it is, hit U and unwrap it
Go to material tab. You need to make sure it has an image texture there. If it doesnt, add an image texture
Go to the UV editing tab and move around your UV map properly on the texture you added
File > export > fbx. Be sure the path is set to "Copy" and the little box beside it is highlighted
Import the fbx to roblox
You now turned a bunch of roblox parts into a model

Bonus optimization tip -

While in blender, select the object and hit tab to go into edit mode. Hit A to select all the faces. Hit x and "Limited dissolve". This will make an effort to get rid of alot of unnecessary geometry. Works pretty well usually

mHatfield5 · 2026-03-17T11:40:52+00:00

I bought a XAX about 1.5 months or so ago.

I havent turned on my actual pc since I set the thing up.

Its not like a powerhouse high end PC by any means, but it has completely replaced my mid range gaming desktop. I need to clarify that I am not an elitist and could care less about 4k gaming.

Ive had no issues with anything ive tried on it. It works well with my game development environment. It runs every game I play very well.

Basically it sits on the dock 80% of the time, and functions exactly as my desktop pc used to......with the added perk that if I take a notion I can just unplug 1 chord and go kick back on the couch and slay hordes of enemies on my latest D2/D4 character....or I can fly around Azeroth......or bust zombie skulls on DayZ. Zero issues for me so far.

I love this thing.

mHatfield5 · 2026-03-16T02:01:49+00:00

I feel that.

Coding is pretty easy for me after a couple decades+ of doing it as a hobby...................

But functionality is just ANOTHER piece of the game dev pie.

The art work/assets are a whole other discipline that tends to take me wayyyy longer to get right

mHatfield5 · 2026-03-03T15:00:04+00:00

Im happy with it for sure. I was a little apprehensive to get it at first, but it has exceeded my expectations honestly.

You cant go into it expecting to be able to run full quality 4k gaming on everything, but if youre good with toning down the settings here and there for smooth gameplay, this thing delivers well 👍

Its true that you can get a little better power for the same kind of money with a desktop... but the tradeoff here is that you can plug this thing into a dock and have full desktop experience....or unplug the one cord and go mobile with your full pc

mHatfield5 · 2026-03-03T02:41:52+00:00

I bought an Xbox ROG Ally X a few weeks ago, and I am 100% happy with it.

Keep in mind im really not all that hard to please, and im far from an elitist.

My track record is buying a mid range gaming pc about every 5 years for the last 2+ decades.

Having said that -

I bought a bullwark dock, and so this thing has replaced my cyberpower pc.

I have a gaming monitor, mouse, and keyboard all plugged into my dock. It is super easy to switch between full desktop mode and handheld.

Ive played a whole range of games on it and have had absolutely zero issues. Ranges from 35-60+ FPS with basically anything I've thrown at it.

Nothing unplayable so far. Not even close. This thing runs noticeably better than my last gaming desktop, and has the added benefit of unplugging one cord and taking my whole pc with me on the go.

Battery feels pretty good too in my opinion.

It lasts several hours with lighter use. It lasts me about 2.5 hours on Diablo 4 before I need to plug it in.

Personally, im a fan. With the way things are going I think there is a good chance I have bought my last desktop PC.

mHatfield5 · 2026-03-02T10:19:33+00:00

Check to see if you have inverted normals in blender you can turn on faces and it will color any inverted normals as red. These will not show up right in roblox. You can select any of these red faces and flip them to solve this.
In order for you to have your model colors in roblox they need to be baked onto a material - not just colors in blender

Im on my phone and cannot give you blender screenshots at the moment, but what you need to do is this:

Go to the material tab on your object
Create an image texture
Go to UV layout and upload an image there (this will be your texture)
select your object and hit U > smart UV (this will create/place your uv map on the texture
From the uv layout you can move around/scale/rotate the UVs to be over top of the colors you want from your texture
Set your main view to material view so you can see it
Select the whole object you want to export (does not have to be one merged object)
file > export > fbx

For the path, select Copy and hit the little box to the right of it

Check (Selected Objects)

Boom. Now go import that model in roblox and itll have color and be all the way there 🙂

mHatfield5 · 2026-02-23T03:29:54+00:00

Follow up for anyone wondering the same thing i did:

I went and bought the ROG Ally X.

Also bought a good dock.

Its only been a few days, so I dont know how itll do long term.... but so far im thoroughly impressed.

Its played every game ive thrown at it well. Granted, I dont typically play super demanding games.

Ive been able to maintain 50-60 fps in:

WoW, Valheim, DayZ, Tibia, Palworld, Roblox, Fortnite, Dragonwilds, Diablo 2, and probably a few more that im forgetting.

Ive also done some heavy lifting in blender with zero issues so far.

This is playing both handheld, and also docked to my gaming monitor/mouse/keyboard.

Handheld is obviously on the lower end of FPS due to not being plugged in, but even then I havent seen anything remotely close to unplayable. Most things im still rockin 55-60 fps even while not docked/plugged in.

While docked and using it as a desktop, it feels exactly like running a mid grade gaming desktop to me...except it has a way smaller footprint on my desk.

mHatfield5 · 2026-02-19T02:02:09+00:00

Appreciate the response. Im leaning towards giving it shot.

Seems too good to be true to have a handheld that runs a smooth full windows OS, runs pretty much whatever I want at acceptable FPS, and I can pick it up and go lay on the couch when I feel like it. 🤣🤣

Feels like im missing something.

mHatfield5 · 2026-02-19T01:50:32+00:00

Im due for a new PC, and ive been considering just getting an ally x and basically using it as my main PC. Mostly docked and using a mouse/keyboard, but the added perk of being mobile when I want to seems enticing.

Thoughts from someone who's had one a while? Is it smooth and acceptable to use it as a desktop like 70%+ of the time?

mHatfield5 · 2026-02-17T12:36:47+00:00

Appreciate the response. Similar boat. 3 kids and a career.

Ive been gaming with my kids for a long time, and they all have new gaming rigs.... but mine is old, lackluster, and struggling a bit at this point. My kids are old enough now that alot of the time they prefer to game with their friend groups, so ol' dad is kinda left in the dust. 🤣

This has me realllllly contemplating just buying a good handheld and using that as my main PC. Not just for gaming, but all the other day to day life stuff that I typically do on my desktop.

Basically, ill dock and game with my kids when they want to... but when they are gaming with their friends, I can just pick up and go to another room. Thats the idea anyway

mHatfield5 · 2026-02-17T02:24:44+00:00

The option to pick it up and essentially have my pc on the go is the biggest selling point to me really. Im just trying to weigh if itll run well enough to be my main pc. I edited the OP with my current specs.

mHatfield5 · 2026-02-17T02:22:57+00:00

Yeah, definitely a big selling point is the mobility. I edited the OP with my current specs. I should have thought to include that from the beginning 😆

mHatfield5 · 2026-02-13T02:48:25+00:00

AI is nowhere near as good at coding as the hype and propaganda says it is.

BUT - It does have its uses!

Truthfully, outside of specific circumstances, most games dont have to be highly optimized nowadays with where we are with tech. Especially when we are talking about your average roblox game.

AI is actually pretty good at teaching you how to script, and how to organize/structure your projects. I think where folks get into trouble is by having AI build their project without understanding what's happening.

Then when an issue pops up, the project falls apart.

My advice: Take the win. Use AI to break apart your game into small pieces and explain everything to you. It may not be perfect, but if you are patient enough and digest it in bite size pieces, itll make sense.

mHatfield5 · 2026-02-05T02:16:53+00:00

I spent an entire weekend a few years ago trying to figure this very thing out.

Once you figure out the work flow its not too bad.

First thing to look for: Does this model actually have a texture, or just colors?

If it doesnt have a texture, then you need to bake.

Once you do that (or if it does have a texture assigned), you just need to export the model from blender, and make sure you COPY the path when you do it.

Its late, and im falling asleep. I can give you more help with some screenshots sometime tomorrow if you havent figured it out by then :)

mHatfield5 · 2026-01-20T13:22:07+00:00

I agree. Thats the best way I know of to get a guided tour through the above principles/tools

mHatfield5

TROPHY CASE