ScriptedJulia

My group, Kohaú, hit 1 million members! This has been a dream of mine since the beginning and I'm so grateful for everyone who has supported us. Excited to see what the future holds! Big thank you to @timmycakeman and @LegendOJ1_RBLX, couldn't have done it without you.

Thank you to Roblox for the Boxing Day Today's Picks spotlight! 🤯 In other news, we've been communicating with Roblox on the new chat policies recently and DevRel have been really supportive of us at every step. Love the team at Roblox for making sure we're heard. 🧡

This is a dangerous move that will more than likely kill social roleplay games on the platform. Creating a space for people of all ages to have fun roleplaying as a sushi chef, barista or car washer is something many devs have done successfully for years. I've built a community of over 2 million people who have fun and socialize in my games. We have over 100 moderators who keep our game safe and enjoyable for people of all ages. Alienating an entire community is not something that has gone well for other devs in the past and is not what I intend to do to mine. It is wrong for Roblox to class themselves as a social platform then backtrack on that when they realize they don't have the resources to handle illegal activities on the platform. Roblox's handling of accusations and overall transparency about such problems is very poor. Roblox has fucked roleplay devs over and over with "safety" changes over the past few months. Now the devs who create positive spaces that rely on communication will more than likely lose that source of income. Seems like the nail in the coffin for social roleplay experiences.

🍡🍣 japanese city map update for @KohauRoblox #RobloxDevs #RobloxDev #RobloxUGC #Roblox

Today we released one of the biggest updates we've ever done to Kohaú, laying the foundation for a ton of cool updates in the coming months. Check out what we've been doing for the past 3 months! 👇 roblox.com/games/43756198…

The year of the hibachi restaurant 🍣

ending 2024 with a bang 🚀

Another year of Kohaú updates is complete, and it's once again time to reflect on what our community achieved together. Here's everything we did in 2024: devforum.roblox.com/t/koha%C3%BA-2…

🔥It has now been exactly 3 months since I started working at @KohauRoblox as their food modeler. Here are some of my fav so far! HUGE THANK YOU to @LegendOJ1_RBLX and @ScriptedJulia for this opportunity! #ROBLOX #RobloxDev #3DArt

It's rare that I'm speechless, but sometimes the biggest achievements are the ones you least expected. We owe this to our amazing community, so I speak on behalf of all @KohauRoblox when I say thank you. 🥹

@LegendOJ1_RBLX No game nights or TikTok videos will grow you a dedicated and long-lasting community. Give them a reason to pick your game by developing something they can't find anywhere else. This is what gives you the best chance of making a successful cafe game. (3/3)

@LegendOJ1_RBLX Kohaú grew because a community of players came together over their love for my idea. I created something new and that's why they chose to play. Having a successful group isn't impossible but if you're just copying what has already been done, you won't be able to compete. (2/3)

When people ask me for my best advice on starting restaurant/cafe roleplay games, my top advice is always "don't". This comes as a shock to many, particularly when you look at the games I've created and made the most money from, though it becomes more understandable when they hear my reasoning behind this. I think a lot of people underestimate the effort and skill it takes to run a roleplay group. All of the group owners have had to work for years to get their game to have a consistent player count and devoted community, and this isn't something that comes easily. Too many people who work as admins or staff in these groups think they have what it takes to run a group right away, which in almost all cases is completely wrong. In order to be successful in this genre, you need a mixture of development and management experience, and it takes a long time to master this. Heck, some owners still haven't mastered it. Then you have to think about growth. Growing a community is hard. Growing a community to a niche audience is harder. Growing a community to a niche audience with a ton of competition is close to impossible. The number of roleplay groups that can never get off the ground because they can't attract enough devoted players to their community is ever-increasing. I've talked to a few aspiring group owners in the past couple of weeks, and a common trend is that they can't answer basic questions such as "what makes your game different?" or "how are you going to grow your game?". If you pitch an idea to an investor, especially for a roleplay group, you need to have something special. As someone who knows how hard it is to make any type of substantial money in this genre, generic ideas are not going to be worth the risk. I hate to be straight up with people but I think that realizing how difficult it is to grow a game with such a niche audience is a reality check for some. Games like Kohaú prove that it's possible to reach wider audiences, but even the biggest groups still can't attract new players from other game genres (or even the wider roleplay genre like Brookhaven) easily. I think a lot of people fall into an illusion when they see a minority of people like me and some of my colleagues who make a full-time living off cafe games and think that it must be easy. I wasted my time and worked for extremely low pay at roleplay groups for over 3 years before being able to make this a job - I'm walking proof that it can be done, but I'm also walking proof that it doesn't happen overnight. For aspiring developers that want to make their talent a career, I always tell them to avoid roleplay groups. There are too many group owners nowadays who get away with paying their developers extremely low, and whilst I know the majority of roleplay groups don't make a lot of money, it is unfair to demand your developers to work so hard for so little. A lot of owners demand passion and good work ethic from their developers when there's little passion left from them, which can be demotivating for developers. And working for those small groups with less than 10K members, no clear plan for the future and no aims to grow the community is a waste of your own talent. Now nothing about this post is to put people off following their dreams; in fact, it's quite the opposite. I highly encourage everyone, if you truly believe you have something special, to make it. But I think that of all genres, this genre is one of the ones with the most amount of experimenting. There's a ton of owners of aspiring big groups that have no experience with development or project management and in return will rely heavily upon your development skills to carry them to success (usually for a bigger revenue cut than you). Whilst this is something that basically all owners have gone through, you have to evaluate whether these people are people you want to work for as a developer. If you've got the talent, like I did, don't do what I did. Work on your own games, work for other types of games, just don't work on underpaid cafe games. If there's one person who I could say has changed my entire perspective on roleplay groups, it's @ScriptedJulia. She's one of the only owners who believes in innovation, building a lasting community, and paying their devs well. And she's straight up - if I heard her perspectives on these groups 3 years ago, I wouldn't have wasted time working at unheard of cafe groups for low pay. She was an MR in groups who decided to create her own, and though it took a few years to blow up, she's proof that it's possible when you have the long-lasting dedication. Two others who I know believe in this are @OfficialFlezent and @Vamonoz4, who both have created something special with their games and developers too. These owners are the ones to look up to and listen to. They know what it takes to build a dedicated community, think of good ideas and execute them well. And that takes me to my final note: if your group idea isn't on the same level as these guys' groups, it's a waste of time to make it. Keep them on their toes 😝 If you found this insightful, drop a follow @LegendOJ1_RBLX for more long-form posts in future 🙌

No new updates this week, just that summer-time feeling. A new all-time record... drive it to the moon 🚀😉 #RobloxDev @KohauRoblox

We added this to implement 4 of our most frequent suggestions: - A profile with in-game stats - A place to write facts about yourself - A list of all the secret recipes and how to get them - An index of all the cosmetics in-game and how to unlock them Future updates will include being able to customize the design and color of your journal. Excited to see how people use this feature :D 🧡

Kohaú would love to make it to the finals for Best Roleplay Experience and Best Social/Hangout Experience, so your nomination is appreciated! When it comes to your favorite features in these restaurant roleplay games, what comes to mind? Slipping on spills? Kohaú did it first. In-game titles? We started that too. A cooking system with realistic hibachi tricks and not just clicking on foods? Ours was the first of its kind. Not to mention our constant additions of never-seen-before features like Secret Recipes, Chef Benefits, etc. Oh, and to prove all that, we're the most popular restaurant roleplay experience of all time. Thank you for your support 😄 🔗roblox.com/games/43756198…

⭐️ New Thumbnail for @KohauRoblox Commissioned by @ScriptedJulia Like and retweet are delicious 😋 #RobloxDev #RobloxGFX

Today we shipped one of the biggest updates EVER to Kohaú Hibachi Restaurant - Table NPC Customers! These NPCs will act like real customers, following you to their seat and allowing you to serve them. They even participate in our two-player trick animations! #RobloxDev

Yesterday marked 1 full year since I joined the team at Kohaú as the Lead Developer. In the past year we grew the group by around 500,000 members and continue to innovate in each update. Read more about how Kohaú made my dream job a reality: legendoj1.xyz/blogs/

Since I joined @KohauRoblox in March, we've published over 20 packed content updates on a bi-weekly schedule. We've achieved so much already and we're just getting started! If you're interested in the work I did this year, read our year in review 👇 devforum.roblox.com/t/koha%C3%BA-2…

Join us @KohauRoblox tomorrow, December 14th, at 4:00 PM EST for PART 2 of our HOLIDAY UPDATE! We've got so much to show you all, but here's one of my personal favorite things I created for this update 👇 Can't wait to show you the rest! 🎄 #Roblox #RobloxDev