Roblox (TV series)

Roblox is an animated television series based on the comic series with the same name created by Declan Hawkins. The series follows Matilda, a female who, motivated by her parents, decides to travel the world, visiting numerous "experiences" known as "universes." Throughout a series of events that would later changes her goal, a group of people accompany her on her voyage, while Matilda strives to achieve her ultimate goal. It stars Anabella Schultz, Anthony Hussain, Sienna Lawrence, Freddie Harvey, Landon Preston, Charlie Armstrong, Paisley Horne, Jack White and Katelynn Richard.

The second television series based on the comics, following The Adventures of Matilda, Declan Hawkin began development on an animated web series, after getting interested in the Roblox comics, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. After being approached, Caitlin Houghton joined the project as an executive producer, co-producer, and co-director. Originally, the animation and the first two and a half seasons of the third season were produced by Ro Kansas City Art Institute, but Aspect Film Productions acquired the rights to officially produce the show during the development of the third and fourth seasons, and Bloxy Animation Productions eventually began producing the series. The music was written and composed by college students Archie George, Jay Clark, Jenson Rose, Levi Buckley, Nikolai Keller, Raymond Norris, and Augustine Clay.

Originally planned to be hosted at Bloxburg Valley Institute of Technology, Roblox first premiered at Roblox High School on January 7, 2022, before starting as a web series online in the United States on January 14. A year later, Avast Television obtained the rights to produce an edited version on their children's network Children's Avast Television because to its success and popularity as well as its marketing, which targeted towards all ages; it premiered on January 6, 2023. The show aired for a total of 18 seasons, 527 episodes and two 45-minute specials. The series was met with positive reviews, with critics, audiences and fans complimenting it on its humor, writing, character development, themes, animation and charm of the original comic. The popularity of the comic increased as a result of its success and had been recognized as Caitlin Houghton's best-ever work.

Premise

Following the premise of the comic series, the protagonist is a female named Matilda who, with the support of her parents, decides to travel around the entire world to meet new people. She ultimately takes part in multiple "universes," or "experiences." After meeting a boy, they eventually meet Elsie Hawkins, a high school student; Michael Rose, a Guest trying to find his missing parents; Cayson Armstrong, a Noob who was about to die but was saved by the group; Sophia Mitchell, an Emo woman who was initially hated and despised by the public, often contemplating suicide, but who eventually learned to be stronger and better than ever before; Jessica Fraser, Matilda's best friend, who she had not seen in over 20 years; Tom Cole, the creator of the "experience" known as Bloxburg, which was destroyed following a series of large-scale protests; and Hamza Freeman, a first-time planet builder.

Cast and characters

• Anabella Schultz as Matilda, the primary character in both the comic and animated series. She was encouraged to embark on a journey, and her aims evolved during the series as she met new people and formed new friendships, all while assisting one another. In addition, she is friendly to everyone and wishes the best for them. Declan Hawkins wanted Matilda to be motivated by something other than her parents when translating the comic book character to an animated series. He defined her as "this normal girl, just wanting to make friends and learn more about the world" and said that, aside from that, his personality was generally happy and laid back. However, he also mentioned that, whenever she sees something interesting, she gets excited at first but quickly becomes embarrassed. Caitlin Houghton's sister, who was starting puberty at the time the series was first being developed, served as one of the many inspiration for Matilda. She is frequently shown throughout the many episodes of the first seasons caressing Brenden, showing signals of affection and wanting to speak up but being too afraid or anxious to do so, before eventually become girlfriend with Brenden. For the series, Matilda was designed by Caitlin Houghton, the same artist and creator of the comics.
• Anthony Hussain as Brenden Moreno (known as The Boy), the first person Matilda encounters on her first journey. Brendon has a crush on Matilda, and they quickly become best friends, which develops into a much greater bond.
• Sienna Lawrence as Elsie Hawkins, a high school student.
• Freddie Harvey as Guest (named as Michael Rose), a local guest attempting to locate his missing parent following a sequence of fatal occurrences that lead him to become separated. Aside from his issues, he is shown to have previously owned a large house, which has now been demolished. After convincing the group to let him go, they agreed, and Guest rejoins the squad, happier than before.
• Landon Preston as Cayson Armstrong, a Noob who was compelled to fight, and by the time the group found him, he was practically dead. Due to the battle, he experienced panic episodes and PSD. He felt more relaxed than before thanks to the team's assistance. He is seen to be helpful to team members and eager to make his ambition come true.
• Katelynn Richard as Sophia Mitchell, an Emo woman who was first disliked and detested by the public, frequently considering suicide, but who gradually learnt to be stronger and better than ever before.
• Paisley Horne as Jessica Fraser, Matilda's best friend, who she had not seen in over 20 years. They had previously been friends, but were forced to relocate after a massive earthquake struck their town. During their time together, they talk, and she wants to be best friends with her, which she does. She is recognized for respecting everyone and supporting them when something horrible happens.
• Jack White as Tom Cole, the developer of the "experience" known as Bloxburg, which was dismantled after a series of large-scale protests.
• Charlie Armstrong as Hamza Freeman, a first-time planet builder.

Production

Background

The Adventures of Matilda, an official animated web series that Charles Bailey and Caitlin co-produced, was the first effort to adapt the idea. The series' development started in late 2014, when Charles reached out to Caitlin to join the project. The production crew consisted of about 100 animators and at least 5 writers, all of them were Charles's best friends. As the web series went into production, Caitlin had plans to took up the role of director for each episode, but refused to and instead served as a producer.

Before the second animated series was produced, the project was characterized as a massive attempt to make an animated Roblox series. It premiered online on April 26, 2015, and ran for 15 episodes (split into two parts) until October of the same year. Originally, 30 episodes were intended, alongside with a second season that was planned for a 2016 release date, but September marked the end of production due to a lack of funding and the animators "being overworked." The first and a portion of the second volumes of the series are adapted for the show, but with major changes to the characters and plot.

Development

Development on a second animated series based on the Roblox comics began in March 2020, during the time of the COVID-19 epidemic, when Declan Hawkins was forced to stay at home from Ro Kansas City Art Institute, his college that he was living and due to the lockdown, he wanted to read a comic to pass the time. After becoming disinterested in other comics that did not meet his search criteria, he decided to read the popular comic Roblox, which was popular at the time because to the closure. Following reading the first ten volumes, by April, Declan Hawkins felt like the comic need an animated series, and he promptly began working on the project by himself. However, Declan admits to himself that despite two months of development, his concept isn't working as well as he had hoped, so he attempted to contact Caitlin Houghton, the original creator of the comics, and after sending several emails to her and asking for a chat, they decide to meet for a twenty-minute meeting, in which Declan and then her discuss ideas for a potential television series.

After organizing several meetings in the early days of summer, Declan Hawkins became friends with Caitlin Houghton, who by that point got increasingly interested in a series. During that time, they both watched the animated series The Adventures of Matilda, which Declan didn't know existed until Caitlin made him watched it, thinking his version was the first official attempt and took notes on how they might create a far better version of the series, with Declan wanting to keep the series as close to the comic as possible, with just small differences.

Now as a fan of the comics, he mostly liked the animated series since it was "generally nice" and "respectful" to the comic, but he thought it needed more charm; he also mentioned major changes to the plot and the fact that it was mostly aimed at men. For his version, he wanted the new animated series to be appropriate for all ages and genders, and he also prepared multiple scripts for planned episodes during the summer, some of which were added in the final version of the series.

Declan Hawkins noted that at least half of the episodes were rushed because they were focused on finishing one chapter from the comic, which was an average of more than 20 pages long. Originally, he had planned the series to be fast-paced due to the comic being seven years old at the time and wanting to get to the newest volumes, but after reviewing the original version, he eventually decided to make it a medium-pace series, with "at least half a chapter per episode", which was changed to over two chapters per episodes later on, then to three to four characters, because of the expanded time that they were given for each episode, allowing them to catch out with the comics.

After Caitlin Houghton agreed to produce an animated series based on her comics in September of that year, Declan asked a few animators to work on a "Roblox series" starting the following month. Initially, at least 50 people joined the project, but after word spread that the comic would be turned into an animated series, over 200 people joined the production team. By January of 2021, it was reported that 250 people had joined the team, and the series' production got underway the following month. On August 5, 2021, Ro Kansas City Art Institute announced that they were officially producing an animated television series based on the comics, with Caitlin Houghton serving as the co-producer and executive producer for the development of the series, scheduled for a release date for 2022. Caitlin Houghton also revealed in September, a month later, that she would be contributing to the project as a co-director of the episodes. She went on to state that, unlike the previous 15-episode show, the new series would cover all of the volumes and chapters and would "probably be produced for a very long time," depending on the number of new volumes that she would eventually make. By that time, the comics was at its forty-ninth volume and was at 441 chapters.

Writing

Process and scripts

The early phases of writing the episodes for the series began with Caitlin Houghton and Declan Hawkin conversing during a meeting before heading and discussing their ideas with the writers, also known as "the authors." Originally, for the first season's development, Declan met with around 30 writers in a public library to discuss concepts and ideas that "might be added into future episodes"; some of these ideas were added, while the majority were dropped, but were later repurposed for future episodes. However, when the series' production team developed, their meetings were moved to a private room on the second floor of the college building, where over 100 writers discussed topics together. Eventually, a script is created and delivered to Caitlin Houghton and Declan Hawkin via email, who collaborated with the writers to successfully adapt the chapters into a full-length screenplay; various adjustments are made during the process, and additional lines are added to fill in the extra time for an episode.

For the first year of production, when it was referred to as a "long-lasting project" for Ro Kansas City Art Institute, the majority of the writers worked from home and communicated with Caitlin Houghton via Zoom, throughout Monday to Friday, in a one-and a half hour meeting to discuss adding changes to the script and finishing the final version of the scripts. Over fifty to sixty pages of writing are written for every episode, with a planned length of more than twenty-two minutes (which was expanded to over twenty-five to thirty minutes), of which the majority is devoted to animation and writing (more than twenty-two minutes), plus an additional two minutes for the ending credits.

Inspiration

Declan Hawkin chose to use his own idea to create the "experiences" as islands and to introduce new species and people that audiences had never seen before in order to develop the story of the adventures of the characters. Hawkin had previously been an avid hiker and traveler to islands. Declan Hawkin developed his idea of species being prohibited from traveling by drawing on actual occurrences. For example, racism against the Noob and the Guests (which led to war) further clarified why the government started pursuing them after they disobeyed the rules, which was both out of fear and anger, "not just anger". Hawkin wanted to improve the idea of species being prohibited from traveling to each other. For the The War arc, which was mainly inspired by Roblox War II and partially the 2017 Guest Genocide, he and a team of writers investigated how war affected soldiers and the general public. They covered a variety of topics, the most in-depth of which were the final three episodes of the arc and which included Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, Mental Health Disorders, and Loss of Human Life; Declan Hawkin said that working on the arc was one of his favorite. The Brookhaven arc was inspired by the Brookhaven Independence War and controversially, the 2013 school massacre.

Declan and the writers had originally intended to have the guard removed in favor of Matilda choosing to travel alone since she had had enough of the rigid regulations. Early into the series's production, Declan Hawkin and Caitlin Houghton started researching the effects of extended vacations on the typical person after characterizing Matilda as a "very long holiday." The idea of not being stressed and how it might improve relationships is what they mostly study, and this served as the foundation for the major characters' character development.

As the production crew progressed through the remaining chapters, they saw that the writing was becoming much more realistic and advanced, and the tone of the series was increasing darker with each volume. Originally, because the series was primarily aimed at fans of the comic, the team met with Caitlin Houghton several times to discuss how they could work out the writing style from the comic to the script, attempting to find the right tone for the much darker episodes and expanding character development while providing very emotional themes and messages that could be understood by people of all ages.

A animal sidekick was planned for a long time, since the start of the third season. According to The Art of Roblox: The Series: Volume Three, an book featuring concept arts, storyboards, character designs, and an insight into the show's production, Caitlin Houghton and Declan Hawkin were viewers of the animated television series Lovely World. Following the series ending, they create the concept to incorporate an animal character, a Sheep, which they drew inspiration from. But in the end, neither of them did with Caitlin stating that she was making comics without a sheep and wasn't even going to incorporate an animal companion to the plot, so the concept was discarded.

Volume Four also indicates that early on, the idea to have an animal sidekick, this time to be with a Wolf and Cat partnered with Admin, one of the primary antagonists of the comic and animated series, was planned, but was eventually abandoned. One of the series' animators claimed that the concept for the cat originated from villains in Disney films that frequently had cats with them. The cat was intended to be a regular animal, appearing "harmless on the outside, but vicious and nasty on the inside". All of these concepts were developed between the first and fifth seasons, and eventually an animal sidekick, a Sheep (which were inspired by the original version of the series), was added and became a member of the group, alongside with a kitten, as seen in The New Species... Wait..., the 70th chapter of the comics in April 2025.

The writers for the series complained that the comics did not give the Sheep enough development or time, so they decided to compensate by giving the Sheep more screen time and personality; she would also be changed to become Matilda's supporter and pet. Because of the criticism that followed the episode's premiere, the comics later expanded the Sheep's position.

Casting and voice recording

The Ro Kansas City Art Institute's local library conducted the first casting call for the animated series in January 2021, wanting voice actors over the age of 20. Before the event, a lot of emails were sent to college students claiming that the "school" had requested a "huge casting call for a television series." This was later proven to be untrue, and although the television series part was true, it didn't mention "animation" or the comics because the aim was to keep the project a major secret so as to prevent students from leaking it and letting the public from learning about it too soon. Over 150 students attended the event and over 100 of them were asked to voice the characters, through a microphone and recorded their lines on a script that Caitlin had written. In an effort to maintain the project's sececy, many students, including Anabella Schultz, Sienna Lawrence, and Katelynn Richard, were requested to record their lines in their rooms by the next month. Anabella Schultz was the first to be cast; she was notified by email and at first was glad and very interested about the project. She was reportedly ecstatic to learn that the project was a television series based on comic books and that she would be providing the voice of the lead character.

Anabella Schultz responded to a question about how she got the part by saying upon getting the news that she was casted, she decided to read the comic for the first time in many years, by rereading the chapters before committing to a recording of her lines to get a concept of her character, which helped her to understand the character's personality and characteristics. She was requested to speak Spanish in several long scenes, and while she learned a couple of words from that language, she didn't fully understand Spanish and had to take Spanish classes to prepare for the situations. Anabella Schultz noted that the process took over three months to complete, and that she was "learning more and more by the day."

A month later in April 2021, Anthony Hussain was cast as the boy. Originally, Anthony was just going to have a few lines for the boy According to reports, the boy was supposed to quit the series shortly after making his debut in the earliest versions of the screenplay for the first few episodes. However, Declan Hawkin scrapped the idea completely, feeling like the concept was stupid and thought that the boy would play a significant role in the storylines, as he did in the comics, and so he gave the character a much greater role, becoming and formally cast Anthony to be a part of the series. In May of that year, voice recording for the characters officially began with late development and early animation.

More casting calls were added as the series' plot developed, and by January of that year, Freddie Harvey and Landon Preston had been cast to play Guest and Noob, respectively. In order to deliver the comic book-style emotive lines, Freddie Harvey and Landon Preston requested that the production staff first emote them. One such instance was when they watched a dog slowly die; this was referred to as "torture" because half of the crew started crying. The voice performers recorded their lines while viewing the moving movies to add realism, and then they used "much energy" to give "the best performance." They claimed that eventually the production team had enough and made them cry even though they didn't want to cry every time there was an intense and emotional scene. A smaller casting call was held for the Emo Island arc, which started in the middle of the series. Katelynn Richard was cast for the role of Sophia Mitchell, whose name was changed from Poppy Thompson in the original comic.

Animation

Art direction

The series, during its complete run, used both traditional and digital animation. The show was produced and animated by Ro Kansas City Art Institute for the first two seasons and almost part of the third. In order to create and assemble the production team that would serve as animators for the series, Ro Kansas City Art Institute sent out an email in February 2021 that looked similar to the previous email they had received, but had substituted "voice actors" for "animators." Within the following week, fifty animators had joined the team (100 by the following month), marking the official beginning of the series' development and from there, early animation began. The production crew referenced earlier mangas, wherein they produced a large number of anime paintings in a single month, and utilized those drawings as inspiration for the comics' particular style. To give the animators a sense of how the series would look in its finished form, several character drawings were made, that took several weeks to complete.

In order to use anime as a "growth point" for the animation and to get inspiration for character and setting movement, the production crew also watched a number of anime. The production team was asked to create an animation test featuring Matilda piloting a boat across a sea of water prior to beginning work on the series' animation. When it was discovered that half of the animators were struggling to bring the scene to life, more experienced animators were brought in to help them, and the other animators—who had created the animation test—started working on the series' actual animation, beginning around May 2021. By the third season, with the series entering its first year, Ro Kansas City Art Institute was noticed by Aspect Film Productions that they had acquired the rights to produced the series.

The animators mostly drew inspiration for the facial expressions from Roblox Scala, an animated series, and the manga of the same name. The animators had to employ a technology called picture morphing, which makes it possible to create in-between transitional images between a pair of target still photos or between frames from video sequences, in order to achieve the desired expressions. To create "such amusing expressions," they recording themself "doing silly things" with their faces, in which the animators choose to then draw over them to create "hyper-realistic faces", for scenes that were aiming for comedy. Additionally, a second test animation was ordered in advance for the previous struggling animators to provide an idea of how the characters' faces would seem in motion.

Special effects

At that time, there were more than 300 people working on the project, 150 of them were animators. The animators were originally anxious that they would have to quit from the show, which they had described as a "wonderful experience." However, the studio extended an offer for them to join their studio, and more than 100 of them accepted. Additionally, the studio hired more animators to work on the series, growing the production team more. The twenty episode from the third season of Ro Kansas City Art Institute were finished more than a month before the animation studio acquired the rights, making it their last fully produced episode before the news.

Ro Kansas City Art Institute had to use copies of water for the special effects at first, creating certain "incomplete" effects; none of them were used in the finished product because they weren't working enough. The animation was further enhanced by having a studio capable of creating special effects, and by the time the third season concluded and the fourth season premiered, there had been a significant shift in quality. In order to create the explosions for multiple episodes, the studio used an actual explosion that happened in a grass field outside, and then they copied and pasted the explosion to a computer, combining the animation with the actual explosion.

Studio changes

By the eighth season, Bloxy Animation Productions had acquired the rights to produce, and the studio's previous animators had joined the team. In an August 22, 2025 interview with the studio's CEO Samantha Barnes, they explained that when they first got the rights to produce the series (around March 2025), over 30 people were invited to a screening of two episodes from each season; Barnes described that everyone was shocked and amazed at how the series was animated and written, with most calling it a "good adaption of the comic that it was based on."

She also stated that half of the people had heard of the series as children or teenagers and became interested in it before the studio acquired the rights. Furthermore, Caitlin Houghton and Declan Hawkin had requested that the studio make each episode look like a "full-on anime"; production and animation began in July of that year, with newer animators joining the production team to work on the animation. The animation process moved much faster due to the studio's large production workforce of approximately 800 people, half of whom were animators and writers. Previously, Declan Hawkin indicated that the "number one issue" was that the animation process was taking less time than intended, and that they wanted to remedy it later.

Music

Selected students Archie George, Jay Clark, Jenson Rose, Levi Buckley, Nikolai Keller, Raymond Norris and Augustine Clay were invited to record music for the series; they would served as the composers for the entire series's run. Before gaining the general idea and concept of the genre of music, Jenson Rose and Nikolai Keller opted to read over 100 chapters of the comic to establish the tone that they were going for. To get a sense of the kind of music they were making, they both wrote down some notes and produced several pieces. Real-life recordings of the music were used to preview a full-length storyboard of the episode during the original recording session for the music at the college's music rooms. Two months ahead of the series' scheduled premiere date, in November 2021, the first recording session began, and it was initially scheduled to conclude in February 2023, but because of the studio's change and wanting the music to be more advanced, the final recording took place in December 2022, two months earlier than expected. The first musical composition was the theme song for the first season, "Through the Wind," which was renamed to "Through the Air" when the first chapter of the same name was explored. The song was recorded on November 2, 2021, and January 5, 2022, for the retake.

Edited version

Following the release of the second season in December 2022, Avast Television discovered the series through videos. Drawn by the show's enormous popularity and success among the local audience, which primarily consisted of children, Avast contacted Caitlin Houghton, who subsequently spoke with Declan Hawkins regarding the possibility of televising the series. Declan was apparently "surprised" and "glad" that his cartoon series was receiving "a change on the big screen" after initially being shown "on the small screen" in jest when questioned about the concept. Declan Hawkins approved of the idea, but he preferred that Avast Television stick as closely as possible to the original internet release of the animated series they had created. However, Caitlin originally voiced her objection and refused to give the series to Avast, stating that she thought the show should only be accessible online. Still, she and the series's creator agreed and co-produced the reduced version of the series after weeks of chatting over its edits.

Executives Donald Avast, the CEO of Avast Television, had only seen about five episodes of the animated series, so Caitlin Houghton and Declan Hawkin went to the studio and showed the first ten episodes over the course of four hours to show appreciation. Eventually, the studio agreed to air the series on television. On January 1, 2023, Children's Avast Television announced, more than a year after the original release, that they had officially acquired the rights to produce an edited version of the series on their network. Around the middle of December 2022, Caitlin Houghton temporarily left the series to work on the trimmed version's production. A few of the animators who worked on the original version were asked to replace some elements of the narrative and animation in the revised version, which also included small adjustments to the animation style. A script of the original version, which was written months before the episode aired, was also provided to Avast Television.

The voice performers were largely English at first, therefore no significant editing was done to the episodes, and the screenplay underwent several revisions, including the removal of some lines. They used the opening music from the original version for the first and second seasons of the show instead of creating a new one and keeping the ending song for the television premiere. The series officially debuted in the United States on Children's Avast Television on January 6, 2023, less than a year after the original release, to positive reviews, but mild ratings. As a test, the production team started featuring songs in entirely different languages starting in the fourth season. By that point, Avast Television had grown accustomed to keeping the opening song, so they asked Caitlin Houghton to create an English translation. The production team then worked on an English translation of their opening song, which they then sent to the studio to be used instead of the original music for the show.

Episodes

Main article: List of Roblox episodes

Distribution

Premiere

On December 1, 2021, one month before the series's debut, Ro Kansas City Art Institute announced that the official premiere of the first ten episodes, which were expected to last about three and a half hours, would take place at Bloxburg Valley Institute of Technology; however, on December 15, it was reported that the premiere would be moved to Roblox High School. As a result of the announcement, Roblox High School announced on December 16 that, contrary to the initial plan, no pupils would be permitted to attend. The premiere was scheduled to begin at about 12 p.m. and finish at 3:00 p.m. Roblox High eventually announced that they were offering out $10 tickets for students who planned to attend the premiere in response to minor objections. Owing to the anticipated high attendance, Roblox High claimed that they had sold over 1,500 tickets. On December 29, Ro Kansas City Art revealed that they were coordinating the event with the City of Bloxburg Police Department.

On January 7, 2022, the series officially debuted at Roblox High School. The premiere was designed to be held outside in the parking lot, with five huge screens spaced apart. After each episode, a musical performance was performed before the next show began..More than 3,000 students (plus the 1000 students who skip classes), 100 staff members from Roblox High, all 700 students from Ro Kansas City Art, 500 more parents, and 900 people from outside the school (including news reporters) attended the premiere, which was the biggest event for Roblox High. With the exception of those students who received tickets, Roblox High teachers said that almost all of their students were absent due to the current premiere. Halfway through the premiere, it led to the cancellation of all lessons for the remainder of the day. The City of Bloxburg Police Department claimed that there were little to no difficulties or disputes on or off the school grounds during the premiere, with the major concern being the heavy traffic and enormous crowds; the time was off, with the final episode ending one hour late than planned at 4:00 p.m. Overall, Roblox High stated that the premiere was a major success and had hoped for "more premieres in the future".

Notes