The Super Mega Fun Obstacle Course, One of the most famous obstacle courses by SinisterAlex
An obstacle course (more commonly known as an obby) is a kind of common type of game on Roblox, in which players must pass through different obstacles to win the game. At the end of the obstacle course, a "Winner's Room" contained several different tools. Navigation enhancers, such as paths, are the most common to see. Combat tools and/or drivable vehicles, such as planes, may also exist. It is commonplace for winners to abuse the tools by attacking players who are attempting to complete the course or to help them win the course by allowing them to the winner's area.
Obstacle courses can be easily made by any player, with Roblox even having a game template for players to create their own obby. Obstacle course creators have been known to be spammed and/or flamed due to their (possibly constant) abuse of free models.
On some special occasions, obbies may have obstacles in which players have to answer questions correctly using the chat to proceed within the obstacle course.
Complex stages and melee stages are common in group obstacle courses.
Criticism
Sometime around 2013, Builders Club members created obbies which awarded free Admin, Robux, or (previously) tickets. Most of these games were believed to be scams, as it is not possible to gain free Robux or Tickets from these types of places. They were commonly built with the stamper tool and featured only one spawn location. Common obstacles that appeared in Admin/Robux obbies included spike jumps and "water jumps". They were typically built to be incredibly difficult to complete. However, if a player did manage to complete an obby, they were usually asked to make a shirt and then were quickly kicked from the game, with the owner denying that they finished the course. Some of these games featured a maintenance GUI trying to steal the player's account information. As a result, BC games were removed from the front page.
At one point, many obbies on the front page contained "misleading place images". For example, users might notice obbies with names of "Escape The Ballpit Obby" or "Escape the ThemePark Obby". In reality, the title has nothing to do with the actual game.
In more recent years, obbies have been used as a quick template for scam games. They will normally have "OBBY" spammed in the title and in the description of the game, to abuse the searching system for games. These games usually take two forms; in one form, they will be littered with colorful GUI and have purchasable items (usually one-time use), with the ending teleporting to another obby or a completely separate game, such as a tycoon. In the other form, it will be seen prior to a Robux scam.
"Escape" Versions
"Escape obbies" usually feature a story and/or theme throughout the game and its stages. For example, at "Escape School Obby", players will have to pass through stages located in a school, such as passing through the hallways, cafeteria, and classrooms without being "caught". In "Escape Prison Obby", players will have to avoid security guards and/or cameras and go through cells, vents, and helicopters to escape the prison.
Common reoccurring obstacles
Obstacles that occur in the majority of the obstacle courses include:
- Lava Jumps
- Lava jumps are probably the most popular obstacle in an obby.
Jumps
- An obstacle is a number of lava blocks that are wide from wall to wall.
- Touching the lava is deadly for your character, so it must be jumped over.
- Some make you die immediately after you touch it, and some take a while to make you die, which is useful.
- Lava jumps are probably the most popular obstacle in an obby.
- Tightropes
- Tightropes can get really intense when walking past.
- Some tightropes include lava jumps.
- Platform Jumps
- Mazes
- A very long path/Path walk
- Laser Jumps
- Pit Jumping
- Choose a Path
- Ball jumps
- Pick a Door
- Moving Lava
- Wheels
- Truss Climbing
- Slide
- Lava jumps on slides are really notorious.
- Speed Paths
- Tree Jumps
- Rock Climbing And much more.
Due to a late update in 2012, which removed the "Click to Move" feature, the "Invisible Path" obstacle has seen a decline in use as it required players to click to move across the invisible bricks. However, players can check if the block is solid with their camera, which allows them to complete the obstacle but at a slower rate.
Tools
Paths, Superjump, Ice Shard (formerly), Ball Paths and Teleport are some of the most common tools at a Winner's Room. Older obbies mainly feature these tools, however, they can also be seen in newer obbies.
Paths
Paths are tools that create a series of bricks behind the player. They can be activated by holding the left mouse button and moving the camera and character around for navigation. They come in many different appearances, such as fire, ice, gold, or rainbow. Players can use these to "walk" towards locations without falling off of the map.
Winners often used paths to make other players either win or lose (e.g. creating a path for players to skip to a later stage or directly to the winners' area, or attempting to fling players out of the obby by trapping them inside the path). This usually cannot happen today, as paths only appear locally due to the way they were scripted alongside various Roblox updates.
Superjump
Superjump is a tool that players can use to jump. By pressing the left mouse button repeatedly, they can jump (or fly) and hover towards their desired location. This tool is usually found in a broken state from Roblox updates.
Teleport
A teleport is a tool that players can use to quickly teleport to different areas on the map. By pressing the left mouse button on the location they want to teleport by hovering it over their cursor, the player would teleport there. This tool is usually broken from Roblox updates.
Ball Paths
Similar to a normal Path, a Ball Path is a tool that created a path but in a ball shape. Six colors were usually common to see: Red, Blue, Yellow, Purple, White, and Rainbow. Ball paths were first introduced to Roblox on May 5th, 2009 by a user known as Pav9495.
Avatar Editing
At the end of some obbies, there will be wearable faces, hats, packages, and hairs. Most obbies feature a "Remove hats" button next to these. Players will lose any avatar changes if they die or leave the game.
Speed Squares
In some obbies, in the end, colored squares that said (e.g) 50% Speed, would make player's characters walk faster when stepped on.