How to Make a Roblox Game: Roblox Studio for Beginners, From First Place to Publishing

Want to know how to make a Roblox game? You do it in Roblox Studio, a free app for Windows and Mac. You sign in with your Roblox account, pick a template, change it, test it, and hit publish. You don't need Robux to build or test anything. Where it gets confusing is who can play your game once it's published, and that's where the new age-check and fee rules come in.

Can you make a Roblox game for free?

Yes. Studio costs nothing, building costs nothing, and testing costs nothing. Publishing costs nothing either if you're happy with a private game that only you and people you've given edit access can open.

The money question only shows up when you want everyone to be able to play, including younger players. Roblox now has tiers for that (details in the publishing section below). So, "do you need 1,000 Robux to publish a game?" No. That fee, or a Roblox Plus/Premium subscription, is part of the route for the all-ages audience, not for making your first game. Plenty of people see a scary video title about it and assume everything is paywalled. It isn't.

What you need

• A PC or a Mac. Roblox lists Windows 10 or macOS 10.14 as the minimum, with 3 GB of RAM. It recommends Windows 11 or macOS 14 or newer, 8 GB of RAM and a screen of at least 1600x900.
• A Roblox account. You sign in to Studio with it.
• The installer from create.roblox.com: RobloxStudio.exe on Windows, RobloxStudio.dmg on Mac. Download it from Roblox's own site and nowhere else.

Those are the only two systems Roblox lists for Studio, so if all you've got is a phone or a tablet, read the next part.

What about making a game on your phone?

There's a newer thing called Build, inside the Roblox app. You describe the game in words, and AI builds something playable that you can playtest and tweak by chatting with it. No code needed. It's for ages 9 and up, with an age check, and as of November 2026 Roblox says it's only in a handful of countries (New Zealand, Singapore, Serbia, Thailand and Canada). If you don't see a Build tab, nothing's broken. Roblox is rolling it out gradually, so it may simply not be in your country, or you haven't done the age check yet. The country list may have grown since, too.

A few more things to know. You get a daily AI allowance for free, and going past it costs Robux, with prices that Roblox says may change. Games made with Build go to age-checked 16+ players by default. There's no building together with friends in the same chat yet. And if you open one in Studio and add your own code, it loses its automatic rating, and you have to fill in the content questionnaire yourself. Build is fun for a quick idea. For learning how games actually work, Studio is the real thing.

Your first Roblox game, step by step

1. Install Studio and open a template

Install it, sign in, and pick a template from the start screen. Three good ones for a first go:

• Baseplate: a flat plate and a spawn point. Empty canvas, most freedom.
• Platformer: customizable platforms, coin pickups, double-jump, dash, roll and long jump already working.
• Racing: a working racecar and a track you can reshape.

I'd start with Platformer or Racing. Changing something that already works teaches you faster than staring at an empty plate. Whatever you pick becomes your first place, called Place1. Roblox now calls the whole thing an "experience", but everyone still says "game".

2. Change the world

Move, resize and recolor parts until the level looks the way you want. For the ground itself, open the Terrain Editor from the Home tab (or the Window menu, under 3D). Its Create tab can generate a whole landscape for a region you pick, with biomes and optional caves, which is handy for a big map you then fine-tune. Its Edit tab has the hands-on brushes:

• Draw and Sculpt add or remove ground (Sculpt is the gentler one).
• Smooth rounds off sharp edges.
• Paint changes the material, like grass to sand.
• Flatten levels an area, and Sea Level gives you a consistent water line.

Brushes have a shape and a size you can change. Don't try to plan the perfect game yet. Make one platform trickier, move the finish line, carve a hill, and see how it feels. For a longer walkthrough of the tools, Roblox's Studio docs on the Creator Hub are the place.

3. Write your first script

Roblox games run on a language called Luau, and the code lives in objects called scripts. Here's how Roblox's own create-a-script tutorial starts:

1. In the Explorer window, hover over ServerScriptService and click the + button.
2. Choose Script. The code editor opens.
3. Right-click the script and choose Rename if you want to give it a better name.

A new script starts with one line:

print("Hello world!")

Open the Output window from the Window menu, start a playtest, and "Hello world!" shows up there. Click Stop when you're done. Next, the tutorial teaches variables. Use local to make one:

local myAnimal = "Porcupines"

print(myAnimal)

Names are written in camelCase, and joining text together uses ... If something breaks, the Output window shows the error in red and tells you what's wrong. Read it. It's usually right. After that, Roblox's Coding Fundamentals series on the Creator Hub covers functions and events, conditionals, loops, and organizing your code.

4. Playtest it

The testing options sit at the left of the bar along the top of Studio. Pick a mode from the dropdown, then click the Play button next to it:

• Test drops your avatar at a spawn point and starts the game. (Older guides call it Play.)
• Test Here drops your avatar in front of wherever your camera is looking, which is great for checking the corner of the map you just edited.
• Run simulates the game without your avatar, so you fly around with the Studio camera and watch physics and characters do their thing.

While a test is running you can pause or stop it. Stop puts everything back the way it was before you started, so you can't wreck your level by playing it. Studio actually runs two simulations, one for the client (what a player sees) and one for the server, and in Test you can flip between the two views. If your game is meant for more than one player, the Server & Clients option launches a server plus extra player windows so you can see how players see each other. One or two clients is usually plenty, though you can go up to eight.

Do all of this constantly, after every little change. A game you've only ever looked at is a game you haven't tested.

5. Publish it

Go to File, then Publish to Roblox. Fill in the name and a description (make the first sentence say what the game actually is, and skip the keyword stuffing, which can hurt the game). Pick yourself or a group as the creator, leave the devices at the defaults, and click Create. Roblox saves it to the cloud on your account, so you can keep editing from any computer. Publish again after big changes, because closing Studio without publishing loses your edits.

New experiences are private by default. Only you and people you've given access can open them.

Making it public: what Roblox asks for

To change who can play, open your Creator Dashboard at create.roblox.com, pick the experience, go to Configure, then Settings, and set the Audience to Private, Limited or Public. The Audience Reach tab shows what you still need to do. Here's the short version as of November 2026:

These rules change, so the Audience and publishing settings in Studio and on the Creator Dashboard are the thing to trust for your own account. They'll tell you exactly what's missing.

One handy extra: you can invite up to 10 early testers from Studio (the Collaborate button, then the Early testers tab) and send them a link. It needs an age check on your end and costs nothing, though it isn't in every region. Testers under 9 only show up if a parent has given permission.

Safety for younger creators and parents

• Free Robux is always a scam. Any site, video or DM promising free Robux, a free subscription or free items is after your password or personal info. Only ever log in on Roblox's real login page.
• Don't run random downloads. Studio comes from create.roblox.com. If a site wants you to run an .exe for "free Robux" or a "better Studio", close the tab.
• Be wary of DMs that pay you Robux to test your game or promote it. I'd ignore every one of them.
• Use the age and account checks as they are. Under-13s need a linked parent account for the all-ages route, and that's a good thing, not a hurdle.

Privacy and chat settings

If you're a younger creator, or the parent of one, sort the chat settings before your game gets any players. As of November 2026, the player's own controls live in the app's Settings, under Privacy and content restrictions, then Communication, then Experience chat. Menu names shift between app versions, so look for the Privacy and Communication sections if yours reads a bit differently. A few rules to know:

• Chat can't be turned on until the account has completed an age check.
• Ages 5 to 9 need a parent's consent to turn Experience chat on. Under 16s need parental consent for Direct chat.
• Regional restrictions can add more limits on top.
• Roblox filters experience chat to block inappropriate content and personal information, and you can block, mute and report anyone.

For under-16s, Roblox recommends the parent set up their own account with parent privileges. From there, the chat settings are under Parental Controls, then Settings You Manage, then Communication. Parents wondering about the platform as a whole should read is Roblox safe for kids.

Will your Roblox game make money?

Probably not much, and that's fine for a first game. Roblox lets creators cash out Robux they've earned through its Developer Exchange (DevEx), but the bar is high, it usually takes a lot of time, effort, skill and strategy to reach it, and there's no guarantee of earning money even then. You can also set up game passes, developer products and subscriptions inside your game, but none of that means players will show up.

Treat your first game as practice. Make something, finish it, make a better one. People who stick with it get good, and getting good is the point.

Where to learn next

• Roblox Creator Hub docs (create.roblox.com/docs): the Studio setup guide, the beginner tutorials and the Coding Fundamentals series.
• The Roblox DevForum: where creators ask questions and show work in progress.
• Other people's games: play ones you like and ask how they could have been built.

If you like the multiplayer side of it, my guide on how to make a multiplayer game covers how the server and clients split the work, and that's a useful thing to know even inside Roblox.

When Roblox isn't the right tool

Roblox is great for getting something in front of players quickly, but you're building inside its rules, its audience and its publishing process. If you want different tools, my list of Roblox Studio alternatives goes through the options, and the multiplayer game guide covers building from scratch. If you're still deciding what to play rather than make, see free games like Roblox, or Minecraft vs Roblox if you're torn between the two.