See, Roblox is not a “game.” It’s instead an open-source platform full of creative features “players” can use to create their own games, mini-games, worlds, and servers.From the outside, or after a quick look, the experience looks like a block builder. Roblox fans would know better, though. You’re either a game creator or a player. Or you could be both. Alternatives should also allow you to be both a game maker and player. And if you can’t create an entire game, we hope, at least, that you can create and even share worlds.
Selecting Games Like Roblox
Choosing games like Roblox requires us to understand the title first. Then, the games or tools we selected should feature a mix of the following elements:
Creative platform: Creators need to download Roblox Studio, a free builder. It allows you to use the platform’s block-building features to create worlds. Block building: Within Roblox’s creative tools, you can place, move, tweak, and modify any geometrical shape. Voxels: “Voxels” is the main physics system in Roblox and in many games that look “pixelated” or “blocky.-” Voxels are geometrical, 3D point in space. Games like Roblox can understand billions of voxels at any time, which is why players get so much freedom to build and destroy the world. Mini-games: Roblox currently offers hundreds, if not thousands, of mini-games, so there’s a lot to play. Then, it has many tools to create questlines, NPCs, items, enemies, gameplay mechanics, and more. Free-to-play: As a player, you create an account and choose one of its mini.-games. As a creator, you’d only need to download its free tool to start “working.” Gameplay: The overall gameplay happens in third-person, on 3D worlds. The activities include exploration, crafting, resource gathering, and combat.Multiplayer: Mini-games are multiplayer. They offer PvP, PvE, PvPvE, Co-op, or just games akin to an MMO world. Customization: Players can customize their looks and apparel no matter the game. Some of the customization options are on the micro-transaction store. Others are in-game rewards. Popular Mini-games: Roblox mini-games are varied. Popular options include Tower of Hell, Adopt Me!, MeepCity, Brookhaven, Royale High, and Piggy. Community: Because of its multiplayer mini-games and creation tools, Roblox focuses on community features. In essence, you can instantly share the games you create and play alongside a massive community of fans.Popularity: The platform has over five million game makers and over 200 million active monthly players.
As you see, Roblox is a massive platform for players and game makers. Moreover, it can be the first entry to game design for many enthusiasts. Ultimately, though, what Roblox offers is a community-driven sandbox experience. The developer’s idea is to push children’s creativity forward, either through games or by programming. Then, users can share their creativity with others, so the game keeps growing.
Games Like Roblox
Garry’s Mod
Garry’s Mod is a sandbox environment where you get to play with a hefty physics engine. It’s also a game without a clear objective, and so it allows players to do what they want like you would on Roblox. Moreover, you can approach this game as a creator, gamer, or both. In essence, players can recreate a plethora of things and gameplay features, and creativity is the limit. The gameplay allows players to spawn thousands of objects. Then, players can tweak and manipulate these items to create new things, characters, places, and game modes. The system works through Valve’s Source engine, present on other Valve’s titles like Portal or Half-Life. Because of that, some of the most popular “games” within GMod are a recreation of Valve’s titles like Left4Dead, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike.If you wish to approach GMod as a game-maker, there’re tools for that, and they work through the same LUA coding as Roblox. However, you’d need to have some beginner to intermediate coding and game design knowledge to do this. Yet, there’re third-party options like Hammer, a fan-made GMod editor. But with the options you get, the community keeps adding servers, game modes, and maps into the platform. That said, Garry’s Mod has a strong sense of community. Its fan base keeps adding mods, game modes, maps, and others. There’re also some elaborate games within the games, which are quite silly and fun. Overall, it’s a hard game to explain, as it’s also a platform, just as Roblox. And because it has grown a lot over the years, there’s a lot you can find in its 3D first-person worlds.
KoGaMa
KoGaMa is another massive game with a full suite of tools and possibilities. In essence, it’s a virtual sandbox world where you can customize avatars and environments. Moreover, you can do this alone, with your friends in co-op or random players online.Even the tagline is similar to Roblox: “Play, create and share multiplayer games.” That’s a familiar formula with thousands of games. Even though its popular mini-games keep changing, the experiences rely on similar elements. You can expect parkour, battle arenas, survival crafting adventures, racing, PvE dungeons, and more. Most of these experiences overlap with Roblox’s more popular games.That said, Kogama allows users to program and script with extra depth and interaction. The language is not as easy or customizable as Roblox’s LUA code. Yet, most of the work is about placing pre-scripted elements in the world, which means an easier learning curve. Also, the same client can either take you towards the creative aspect or any mini-game or server you choose. Lastly, you can visit Kogama’s main page to find the featured, popular, and trending worlds and mini-games. You can join either quickly, and you can share your own creations just as easily. Kogama keeps growing and becoming more popular and fun as a community-driven game. More impressively, you can play it straight from your web browser.
Minecraft
Minecraft is one of the most famous games globally, and it’s also a sandbox. AS Roblox, Minecraft lets users play, create, and share their creations with the community.It’s also a different kind of experience, though, as Minecraft is more of a game, and the gameplay is about using its tools. You create a character and enter into a nearly infinite and procedurally generated world. The world is full of blocks, and you can mine every block to craft and build a plethora of things.There are tons to do on Mojang’s title. The gameplay loop uses the right tools to “mine” other blocks and then uses these resources to build. You can create structures like farms, houses, towers, caves, rails, and more. You could also craft gear, potions, portals, chemicals, weapon enchantments, and more. Lastly, the game has a multiplayer layer too. You can share your map with your friends to build together. Alternatively, there’re user-created mods to play another kind of Minecraft experience. These include co-op modes vs. zombies or full-on Pvp in dungeons.
8Bit MMO
8BitMMO is a free-to-play indie MMO under the creation of a single developer, Robby Zinchak. The fact that he’s alone doesn’t matter, though. That’s because the game encourages players to create their own worlds and share them with other players. So, instead of controlling a single character, you control an entire MMO universe you can share. It’s a gameplay loop that may appeal to Roblox fans, as the creative element is the heart of 8BitMMO. The worldbuilding works through extensive building functionalities. Players can create many aspects of a virtual world, even though there’s no proper tool to do it. So, worlds are 100% made by players, including environments, dungeons, towns, houses, visual styles, and more. Lastly, you can tweak your character’s appearance, from clothing to accessories. Overall, this alternative is both a game and a platform, which is exactly what we’re looking for. You can invest time creating your worlds or visit other people’s places and experiences to have fun. Speaking of which, players can create adventures, sandboxes, PvP arenas, co-op PvE areas, and anything in-between.
Growtopia
Growtopia is another MMO sandbox. Players can build worlds, trade, farm, chat, combat, and explore together. It’s a community-driven game with a player base that competed with Roblox. Sadly, it’s no longer so.But because of how many players have come and gone, the diversity of its worlds is massive. There’re hundreds of mini-games, game modes, and maps to play and explore. Everything happens as a 2D experience, though.So, you can also approach Growtopia as a game maker or as a player. This sandbox is about building your virtual space with hundreds of block types you can gather or trade. Then, you can use your blocks and recipes to create mini-games. The mini-games revolve around parkour challenges, puzzles, mazes, traps, races, and PvP arenas. Ubisoft bought the game in 2017, though. Since then, the game has had a freemium model many would consider predatory. It’s why the game has lost a lot of its fans during recent years. However, it’s still the creative transformer Roblox fans could love, with hundreds of mini-games you can try.
Lego Worlds
Lego Worlds has taken over the gaming realm with digital toy bricks. Like Roblox, it allows users to play with their blocks to build their worlds and spaces.Players can use objects on the amp and collect them. Then, they can trade these items for in-game currency and other apparel. And if players want to build vehicles, houses, and more, they can use the blocks for their creations. Then, they can use the vehicles to explore the world.See, worlds in Lego are made of Lego models. As such, you can interact with anything you see in the world. More importantly, the game generates the maps procedurally, so you’ll never see the same things twice.Lastly, LEGO Worlds allows local or online co-op with up to two players on a server. Roblox fans don’t want to miss both having the freedom to create and do anything in a sandbox.
Fortnite (Fortnite Creative)
Fortnite needs no further introductions. It’s the biggest battle royale globally, and it’s also free-to-play. At first glance, though, it doesn’t share many elements with Roblox. However, one of its game modes is what you may be craving.The Fortnite Creative Mode is a free-form building system that works like the Roblox platform. You access a personal island to create worlds with the game’s building systems. Then, you can use these worlds to hang around with your friends or turn them into battle arenas for custom modes. Moreover, players can roll out unofficial games like racing titles, parkour titles, and building challenges with the creative mode. Then, players can share these worlds so others can join and try.Overall, the Fortnite Creative mode allows you to create Fortnite games and experiences to share online. It’s your opportunity to imprint your vision on a private island, although you have to follow a set of rules. Moreover, you can play hundreds of custom games or just visit them in the hub.
Fancade
Fancade is a free mobile game that offers a set of tools to create mini-games, challenges, and puzzles. Like other games on the list, a single indie developer is behind the title. Luckily, the game receives constant support, as well as a healthy fan base-There’s a core quest and core gameplay that takes you through the developer’s puzzles as well. The “campaign” has wonderful and varied puzzles and over 100 mini-games.You can visit the arcade outside of the main quest, another developer-made environment. Here, there’re challenges where you can compete with other players or play alone as single-player experiences. Lastly, there’s a build mode available. You can create puzzles, challenges, and mini-games you can then share on the arcade. Fancade shares the most popular options on their featured, popular, or tag searches. As for the building options, there’s a game template kit even, but it needs some practice to understand.
CastleMiner Z
CastleMiner Z is a sequel to Xbox’s indie title CastleMiner. Both are similar, though. The games have procedurally generated blocky worlds where players have to survive at all odds.The game debuted as a survival title. That means players had to gather resources, craft weapons, and defend against the monsters. There’s also a Creative Mode where players have the freedom to do anything, with an infinite amount of resources and blocks.Currently, the game has four game modes. Aside from Creative and Survival, it also has Endurance and Dragon Survival modes. Either way is similar, as players have to extract resources to craft weapons. Moreover, enemies include zombies, dragons, and demons.Lastly, the game includes a co-op mode that supports 8 players online. And once you start a new game, you get to select one of the available worlds. Then, the game loads the map, and you appear right in the middle to start your sandbox experience.
Cubic Castles
As the name implies, Cubic Castles is an adorable adventure with cubular blocks. You, the player, build the world, though, one cube at a time. That means you start on maps without a single structure, and you’re the one who creates anything in the realm.So, the gameplay is a journey, and the journey is creating environments. You get to play this with a birds-view perspective on a series of “floating” worlds with platforming mechanics. You jump, run, walk and gather resources from the environment. Then, you use these resources to craft blocks and build your structures.Additionally, Cubic Castles lets you visit other players’ worlds, or vice-versa. You can inspire others’ realms or receive feedback from them or your friends. It’s also a mini-MMO game, as other players can share a server with you to build and explore together.Over time, the developers have added more elements into the game. For example, there’re NPCs to trade resources, platforming segments, and more. Within the persistent online worlds, though, you can create your own castle, customize your character’s apparel, mine resources, craft, and trade.
Terraria
Terraria blends classic 2D platforming action with the sandbox features games like Roblox deliver. The result is a sandbox survival adventure with crafting, exploration, and combat. In essence, you explore massive and procedurally generated 2D worlds. It’s overwhelming, full of resources, and full of enemies. Moreover, you can explore the surface, or the caves under the surface. Either option will yield rewards in the shape of gear and resources.Then, you can use the resources to build gear, potions, houses. You can also build houses for the NPCs you unlock, as it’s part of the game’s questline. Moreover, as you create better armor and weapons, you’ll also unlock combat skills, magic, more HP, and more mana for your magical powers. Terraria is a retro adventure with a large fan base and constant developer support. If you’re a Roblox fan but want to play something more action-oriented, perhaps you could try Terraria.
The Blockheads
The Blockheads is also a sandbox, and it happens in a 2D block-based and procedurally generated game. On top of that, the game constantly evolves, so you’ll never get to see the same thing.Players control “Blockheads,” the protagonist. He can create and destroy the blocks in the world to craft materials. On top of materials, he can also create structures, and these can be just as big as the player can imagine,The world is also massive. Players can explore deserts, oceans, mountains, caves, lakes, rivers, and anything in-between. There’re also weather conditions, seasons, and mobs to defeat. Combat is quite light, though, but you need to craft the weapons you need to defend yourself. Overall, Blockheads is a classic sandbox where you can explore, mine, craft, and combat. The game is rich in details, and the world is huge and gorgeous. Moreover, you can farm and advance in tech branches to build stuff your friends could enjoy, like shops and steam trains. That’s because you can play online as well: if you wish, you can join multiplayer servers to share the experience with others.
Terasology
First and foremost, Tesarology is a project that started as a Minecraft tribute. It debuted as a tech demo. It has become stable and fairly popular over the years and has some fresh features compared to other sandbox games.Teratology is a free and open-source title. The gameplay happens in a procedurally generated voxel world. In essence, the creators and “maintainers” are software developers, game testers, designers, artists, and musicians keeping the game fresh. The gameplay is basic and similar to Minecraft. You enter a 3D world from a first-person perspective. Here, you can explore, mine blocks for resources, and build almost anything you can imagine. Like Minecraft, you can destroy any block and put them back as you prefer. There’re also some extra tools in Tesarology. You start with an array of picks and axes to mine particular resources. Moreover, you begin with dynamite, which immediately destroys many blocks. You also have a Rail Gun that destroys blocks on a straight line. Lastly, you have Scissors, a tool that copies a landscape into a single 2X2 block.
