Developer Spotlight: DreamCraft Studio
This week, we will be taking a look at DreamCraft and its developers, NewFissy and Bethink. The studio created the well-known game Adopt Me!, which has accumulated over a billion visits, so it’s safe to say Adopt Me! is player favorite. In this spotlight, we’re going to check out the developers’ stories and pick up some strategies they used to make their game so popular.
How long have you been a part of Roblox?
NewFissy: “I’ve been a proud Robloxian since 2009. This year was my 10th anniversary.”
Bethink: “I have been part of Roblox for several years now, but ever since I worked at Roblox HQ last summer I feel more entwined with the company more than ever.”
How did you find out about Roblox and what got you interested in game development on the platform?
NewFissy: “When I was in elementary school, I overheard some close friends talking about this “Roblox” thing which I had never heard of before. I asked them for a link and downloaded it after school. A few months later, I discovered that you could build your own games on the site. And thus I started tinkering with the tools and gradually expanded my skills. Two years later, I got my start in scripting by reading Lua scripts open sourced under Roblox’s Free Model Catalog. Roblox provided a creative and technical outlet for me to express my ideas at a young age, and it has had me hooked ever since.”
Bethink: “I first found Roblox from an advertisement on some flash-game From there, I got all of my friends to play it with me which is what got me really into it. I started to get interested in development by playing Roblox games, copying free models and then eventually going into commission work.”
Your studio is best known for your game, Adopt Me. How would you say your game got so popular?
NewFissy: “We knew that we needed to make our game special if it were to stand out and become popular. To accomplish this, we built a couple mechanics that players had never seen before on the site such as being able to seamlessly and naturally carry another player in your arms. Additionally our relentless focus on quality (both creative and technical) has always given us a competitive edge on the charts. We employ some of the strongest engineering practices on Roblox to ensure our game can support complex features without sacrificing on quality or maintainability.”
Bethink: “I would say from having some of the best tech on all of Roblox, great art and a LOT of planned out marketing. To become popular on Roblox you need to try and have one of the best games out there. One that is fun, easy to play, looks amazing, and has endless possibilities. It is something we strive for every day.”
What was the creation process behind Adopt Me?
NewFissy: “We try to publish meaningful updates weekly to our players, but this isn’t a simple feat to accomplish while working on bigger updates behind the scenes. Generally our creative director, Bethink, will stockpile a long list of ready-to-go updates that can be pushed at any time. And I will work on our long term initiatives that require deep changes to our codebase, which we publish quarterly.”
Bethink: “We started from the ground up. Initially, we were going to create a pet game which would have basically been Adopt Me but with pets. (We’re working on doing something similar at the moment with Adopt Me). After that, we split up for a couple of months and then came back with the game. NewFissy is the scripter and the technical lead and I do stuff from 3D modelling to graphic design and renders.”
What features/resources did you find useful throughout the development process?
NewFissy: “The Roblox Developer Hub is the obvious answer. Some other resources that has drastically changed my coding style are Quenty’s open source Nevermore Engine, which I’ve learned many best practices from. And Roblox’s React port, Roact.”
Bethink: “We kept it bare bones. I used vanilla Roblox studio, Photoshop, Cinema 4D and that’s about it. They’re all not too difficult to pick up and if you’re interested in doing creative stuff on Roblox then you should give it a go!”
Your game is currently available in multiple languages. How was your experience with localizing your game?
NewFissy: “The workflow has been pretty smooth. Roblox has provided some very powerful tools, such as their new Cloud Localization system, which makes real-time collaboration on translation really simple. Finding the right translators has been a lot more difficult. We’ve been through about 5 spanish translators after discovering each time that the individual wasn’t translating up to Roblox’s standards.”
Bethink: “Fairly difficult at first, but when the ball got rolling it seemed to get a lot easier.”
Localizing a game opens it up to a larger community of players. How has localizing your game impacted your game? Does opening your game to a larger audience improve your game?
NewFissy: “Comprehensive localization has opened up our game to big new markets; especially in Latin America. Having more players in game helps fund our studio which allows us to hire more people and up our quality bar.”
Bethink: “Localizing Adopt Me has impacted the game beyond belief. Over a quarter of our player base speaks a different language other than English, which is incredible to think of.”
As a well established and veteran developer, do you have any advice for upcoming and aspiring developers?
NewFissy: “Be the best at what you love. Especially with roblox development — the hours are long and the light at the end of the tunnel can seem far. Very few people succeed if they’re only in it for the fame or money. For me, I’ve been building games on Roblox even before it was possible to make money through the Developer Exchange. And even when there were only two players (me and my mom ❤). I cherished the journey. If you find something you love, your passion will be contagious, and maybe one day your vision will scale to hundreds of millions of people too.”
Bethink: “It may be hard at first but if you keep with it you can accomplish something amazing!”
Thank you NewFissy and Bethink for taking the time and sharing their experiences with us! Check out their studio, DreamCraft to stay updated on their game, Adopt Me!. You can also follow NewFissy and Bethink on Roblox or on Twitter @newfissy and @Bethink_RBX.
