The Roblox Builder's Quest · Setup · Mission 1 · +50 XP · ⏱ 15 min

First contact — make Roblox obey your command.

Fifteen minutes from download to your first line of code running in a real game engine.

Win condition

Roblox prints a message that YOU told it to print — visible in the Output panel.

200,000 FT

The Big PictureYou are the one giving orders

Studio is the same engine behind games with millions of players.

Every Roblox game you have ever played was built in the exact tool you are about to open. There is no "kid version" — this is the real thing, and by the end of this mission it will do what you say.

30,000 FT

The BuildOne-time setup, then your first command

Four setup steps, then two lines of Lua.

Go to roblox.com/create and download Roblox Studio (free).

Open Studio and click Baseplate. You now have an empty world.

Find the Explorer panel (View tab → Explorer if hidden). It's the map of everything in your game.

Find the Output panel (View tab → Output). It's where your code talks back to you.

Explorer

The family tree of your game. Every part, script, and folder lives somewhere in this tree — and where it lives determines what it can do.

Output

The engine's voice. Successful prints show here in white; errors show in red with the line number that broke. You will read this panel constantly.

Now the command. In Explorer, hover over ServerScriptService, click the +, choose Script. Delete what's in it and type:

print("I am now a Roblox developer")

Press Play (or F5) and watch the Output panel. That text appearing is your code running inside the engine.

UNDER THE HOOD · LEVEL UP

The PracticeVariables and the glue operator

Level up before you leave.

Change the script to this (put your own name in) and run it again:

local myName = "YOURNAME"
local level = 1

print(myName .. " has entered the game at level " .. level)

local myName = ...

A variable — a labeled box that stores a value. `local` is how Lua declares one. You'll make hundreds of these.

The .. operator

Glues text together. Other languages use +; Lua uses two dots. It even glues numbers onto text, like the level above.

A variable is a scoreboard: `myName` is the label painted on it, and the value is the score written underneath. You can repaint the score anytime — the label stays.

0 FT · WHEELS DOWN

Repair Shop + DebriefIf it didn't work

The Repair Shop.

🔧 Nothing shows in Output

Is the game actually running? Code only runs during Play. And check the Output panel is open — View tab → Output.

🔧 Red text in Output

Read it — it names the line that broke. The usual suspects: a missing quote mark around the text, or one dot instead of two in ..

Output is your friend

Every mission from here on, the Output panel tells you what happened and where things broke. Keep it open always.

Variables are boxes, .. is glue

Two ideas, and they appear in every script you will ever write.

Mission complete

+50 XP. Press the red Stop button and head to Mission 2 — you're building a trap.