Roblox (stylized as ROBLOX) is a website and virtual sandbox made by founders David Bazucki and Erik Cassel where players make their own massively multiplayer online games for other players to play. The Concept for Roblox was developed in 1997 and Roblox was founded in 2005 as "Dynablocks". Roblox publishes the players' games using the programming language called Lua. Players make their games using a simpler version of this program. As of now, Roblox has been removed from the TrustE program. It is listed in the Better Business Bureau with a poor rating. First appearing in the 2005 beta release of Roblox, the death sound has remained a staple element in it's 10+ year history. The sound effect triggers when a "Humanoid's" (the character models controlled by players) health reaches zero, out of a base maximum of 100. Since the worlds are crafted primarily by the players, this can be achieved by having the hit boxes assigned to the body parts of a Humanoid struck by tools that are purposefully coded to decrease the health (such as spike traps, or falling into the void of a map, for examples). Based on the speed of the humanoid, the sound effect would be changed. Players would attempt to make their characters move as fast as possible in the hopes of hearing the sound effect drastically pitch shifted.
Roblox was originally called Dynablocks. Dynablocks was worked on from 2004 to 2005, but in 2004, only the developers and very few players could make its games. Dynablocks had two features: Build Mode and Challenge Mode. In May 2005, Dynablocks was renamed to its current name "Roblox". Also, new features were added, including logging in and logging out, building more complex things, and special Roblox points. During this time, Roblox was only available in beta to certain players. Roblox had another big change in 2006. In January 2006, Roblox removed their special points and made the multiplayer API, but the API was never used until March 2006. In February 2006, Roblox left beta and was made available to all players. In September 2006, Roblox made changes to the multiplayer API so that players could make their own multiplayer games for free instead of the developers making them. In May 2007, the Roblox developers began making virtual items, and its first virtual item was a top hat. Roblox also started the Builders Club which is a paid membership. Guest mode, which is for players that want to play Roblox without making an account, was introduced in 2008. Later, higher forms of the Builders Club (known as the Turbo Builders Club and the Outrageous Builders Club) were started in 2009. In 2010, the Roblox Studio was changed so that game developers could understand its functions easily. In June 2015, Roblox released Smooth Terrain which made the terrain (such as sand, grass, water, etc.) more realistic. On 14 April 2016, Tix was removed. In February 2017, Roblox has changed their logo. In October 2017, Roblox had removed guests from playing games, though occasionally they don’t have that update and they can still play that way. In 2019, Builders Club was replaced with Premium.
Roblox lets its players create their own games using its special program called Roblox Studio. Players on Roblox can build anything they please using the Studio and then publish their game to the Roblox website for everyone to play. If the player knows how to script, they can use it to change the game and make it perform in many different ways. In some games, the creator may create game passes which will cost a certain amount of Robux (the virtual currency). The game pass is not needed to play the game, but if they buy it, they are usually given special benefits (e.g, DLC, In-game currency, More health).
