Roblox games have an interesting challenge. They need a fun premise that can support a lot of players but also need systems deep enough to survive hours of play without becoming boring.
There are 2 common ways to achieve this. You can add more content, such as levels, tools, or upgrades, or you can add systems that create changing situations, such as destructible maps, NPC behaviours, or special rounds. The Natural Disaster genre combines both approaches, using fairly simple maps and disasters which then interact with each other to create a huge amount of gameplay.
One of the top games in the genre released in 2008 and is still among the top-ranked Roblox games to this day. It’s a surprisingly effective genre to create for because developers don’t need hundreds of levels or complicated mechanics. They just need systems that work together and allow players to create their own moments.
You Don’t Need Much to Make a Lot
Video games are made up of moments, and everything works towards creating a moment. This could be a group of enemies suddenly coming into the room, or even something as simple as getting from point A to B. These moments can be amplified in multiplayer games when you throw in playing alongside friends or dealing with other real-life players with their own plans.
Natural Disaster games are filled with moments because they’re designed around a few randomised variables interacting with other systems to create emergent gameplay. Each round will have a themed map, with structures on the map usually being destructible, which leads to changing geography as the round progresses and also makes it harder to survive. Each round then has a randomised disaster which strikes the map after about 30 seconds. Players are told what the disaster is shortly before it starts, which can create a lot of panic as everyone tries to get into a better position.
The maths for this is pretty fascinating. If you have 5 maps and 5 disasters, then that’s already 25 scenarios. Each map brings something slightly different, such as a dense building or a sparse yard, which changes the approach to surviving whatever the disaster is. The disaster itself then changes the map and how useful its structures are.
A 2-story building might not be the tallest structure on the map, but it could be more structurally sound than a silo, so if the disaster destroys the base, such as a flood, then you might want the building which is less likely to collapse. Disasters such as fire amplify this effect by slowly taking away blocks from buildings, meaning players can see their current position becoming less useful and decide whether they should move somewhere else.
All of this means a fairly small amount of content can create a lot of gameplay. Each disaster interacts differently with each map, and each map creates different positions, escape routes, and dangers for the player.
Players Create Their Own Moments
Players naturally create their own moments by choosing where to go at the start of the round and then reacting once the disaster is announced. If the disaster is some sort of falling threat, then I obviously want to be as low as possible and underneath several floors, but this same position is lethal if there’s a flood or tsunami.
This creates situations where I might head to one location at the start of the round, only to quickly attempt to get somewhere better once the disaster starts. That can leave me trapped behind rubble or frantically trying to escape a collapsing building. The interesting part is that none of this needs to be directly scripted by the developer. The player made the first choice, the disaster changed the situation, and now they’re dealing with the consequences.
Other players add another layer to this because everyone has their own plan. If there are a few of us standing in one spot and then everyone starts running once the disaster is announced, should I go too or stay there? At the start of the game, should I follow the crowd because they might know a better place, or go to my own location? There isn’t always a correct answer, which makes these situations more interesting.
Tools and items can then create extra moments because of how multiplayer games work. Many games in this genre offer a crowbar, bomb, or another tool that can destroy blocks on the map, which is also one of the ways these games make money. A player might destroy a staircase, ladder, or another important section needed to get to the roof, effectively dooming everyone if the disaster takes out the ground floor.
This turns other players into part of the game system because they can directly change the environment around you. The developer doesn’t need to script a situation where the stairs collapse while everyone is trying to reach the roof because another player can create that situation themselves.
Why Natural Disaster Games Work So Well for Developers
I think this genre is incredible when you look at it from the developer’s perspective. All they really need to do is create the maps, the disasters, maybe some tools, and then let players create their own moments from those systems.
It’s also a very easy genre to create more content for because each new addition works with everything already in the game. If you create a new themed map, such as an oil rig, then every existing disaster can now happen on the oil rig. If there are 5 disasters, then adding one map has effectively created 5 new scenarios. The same thing happens when adding another disaster because it can then be used across every existing map.
This makes the genre very efficient because developers don’t need to handcraft every possible situation the player can experience. They create the systems and then let those systems interact. A building can collapse differently each time, players can choose completely different locations, and someone might destroy an important part of the map halfway through the round.
Natural Disaster games are a great example of how you don’t always need huge amounts of content to keep players interested. Sometimes a few simple systems interacting with each other can create more gameplay than dozens of completely separate levels, especially when real players are thrown into the middle of it.
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