Developer Spotlight: Meet RedManta Studio
As Roblox continues to grow, developers push towards more creative and innovative content. While there are small teams and solo developers who make great games, there are also groups of developers who have formed entire studios! RedManta has worked hard to balance continued support for Robloxian Highschool while also creating new games such as World // Zero. In this spotlight, we’ll be delving into how RedManta operates and how they decide what projects to pursue. Let’s begin!
What was the inspiration behind the founding of RedManta?
RedManta was founded after the success of Robloxian Highschool. We wanted to found a company so that we could continue to create games but at a bigger scale. So in January 2018 RedManta LLC was incorporated!
From where does RedManta operate?
Our office is located in San Mateo, California. We have a South-facing suite with plenty of space! We recently renovated our lounge area and are working on our snack-wall next. The office is a great resource for team members who are in the Bay Area and has had a major impact on our productivity.
How many members do you have or have you had in your studio?
We have a total of 10 full-time team members located across the country.
How many are on-site and remote? We have five on-site and five remote!
What are the challenges you run into with such a large team and how do you resolve them?
We’ve tried many different solutions for organization and have found that for our teams, Trello is the most efficient workflow! We break up our tasks into short-term sprints so that it never feels like we’re chipping away at an impossibly long list of things to do.
What games have been released by RedManta since the founding of your Studio?
Since founding the studio we’ve continued to support Robloxian Highschool with major updates as well as starting two new projects. Pirate’s Life was our first project and World // Zero is our newest!
Have all of these games received the recognition you were hoping for?
Pirate’s Life didn’t pan out the way we intended and the project was cancelled in January. While the game didn’t achieve the success we had hoped for, it was an important learning experience. World // Zero has since gone into Alpha release and has achieved overwhelming success holding #1 top rated for over a week and reaching #8 top earning on desktop! We didn’t expect the game to pick up so much attention initially so we’ve got some high expectations to meet!
With World // Zero entering it’s Alpha stage and gaining great success, users and developers alike will be looking more towards your studio. How do you hope this recognition aids you?
With the success of World // Zero’s alpha we’re hoping people will see what the teams at RedManta are capable of. The alpha was created in 3 months which we think is really impressive! This was done with lots of careful planning beforehand to make sure we were prioritizing only the tasks necessary to reach our alpha vision.
Have you localized any of your games? How was that experience and how did it benefit your game?
We’ve localized Robloxian Highschool and World // Zero will be localized as well. We develop with localization in mind so that we don’t need to spend time going back and converting our games later.
Is your Studio participating in any currently available Roblox opportunities?
We are currently participating in the global content initiative, Rthro sort and Egg Hunt!
Robloxian Highschool has been one of the top Roblox games for a long time. How do you keep players returning to your games?
We try to engage with our fans to keep an active community going. Things like Twitter, community discord and ingame events help keep players coming back every week! We’ve also partnered with influencers to create unique experiences for our combined audiences.
With the revenue that you make, how do you decide what new projects to invest in?
When investing in new projects our goal is to find fun ideas without spending a lot of resources on something that won’t pan out. So we try to develop bare-bones prototypes and then fill them out with art & content if they’re fun.
Do you have any tips for other developers about marketing strategy, player retention, monetization and starting a studio on Roblox?
The most important advice I can give is this: Figure out whether your game is fun before you spend all of your time making it. If your first prototype doesn’t end up being fun, keep trying until you make one that is!
A huge thank you to RedManta for taking the time to answer these questions. A single developer can do a great deal, but a team working together can really help! RedManta is the first of many studios slowly but surely appearing on the Roblox platform. We hope their work inspires young and veteran developers alike to form teams and studios to create cool games for all to enjoy.
Keeping up-to-date with their work is as simple as following them on Twitter! You can find their various social accounts below:
RedManta
World // Zero
Robloxian Highschool
