How to make a horror game like Doors

BloxMaps is not affiliated with Roblox or with the developers of Doors. This page describes the kind of game in our own words so you can make your own, original one.

How the loop works

1. Lobby and elevator. Friends gather in a lobby, maybe buy a few items in a pre-run shop, and ride down together.
2. Rooms, one by one. Each door opens onto a new room built from a set of room designs, so every run is different. Doors are numbered, so players always know how far they've come.
3. Threats with tells. Different threats each have a warning sign: lights flicker, a sound starts, the room goes quiet. Each tell means a different action: hide in a closet, don't look, keep moving.
4. Search and solve. Drawers hold coins and items; some rooms are locked and need a key; special rooms have a puzzle or a big chase.
5. Reach the end (or don't). Getting caught ends your run, and you watch your friends try to finish.

Why it works: it's endlessly replayable, because the rooms are shuffled. Every threat is fair once you know its tell, so players get better each run, and telling new friends the rules is part of the fun.

The systems you need

• Room generation: a library of room templates, each with an entrance and an exit; the game places each new room so its entrance lines up with the last room's exit.
• Doors and progress: a door counter, locked doors with keys, the run's goal.
• Threats: each one a small script with a tell, a rule (what's safe), and a punishment.
• Hiding spots: closets and beds that hide the player from certain threats.
• Loot and the shop: drawers with coins and items (a lighter, a lockpick, a vitamin), a pre-run shop in the lobby.
• Lobby and teleport: a lobby place and a game place, with the group teleported together.

Building it in Roblox Studio

1. Room templates. Build 5 to 10 rooms as models in ServerStorage. Give each an Entrance and an Exit part (invisible) and set the model's PrimaryPart to the entrance.
2. Chaining rooms. When a player opens the current exit door, clone a random template and PivotTo it so its entrance sits exactly on the last exit. Delete rooms far behind the group to keep the server light.
3. The door counter. Number each door with a SurfaceGui and keep the count on the server.
4. One threat. Start with a simple one: lights flicker (the tell), then something rushes through the room; anyone not hiding is caught. Then add more threats with different rules.
5. Hiding. A ProximityPrompt in a closet moves the player inside and sets a Hiding attribute your threats check.
6. Lobby. A separate place for the lobby, and a group teleport to the run (see the horror guide's lobby section).

Lighting and sound matter as much as code here: the horror lighting tips apply to every room.

Make it yours (and keep it allowed)

Lots of Roblox hits start as "a game like X, but...". That's fine. What isn't fine, under Roblox's rules and copyright law, is copying: another game's name, logo, characters, art, sounds, map or scripts. Copies also tend to get reported and taken down, and players can tell. To make the format yours:

• Change the theme. Different world, different creatures or items, different mood.
• Add one rule of your own. A twist on the loop that only your game has.
• Use your own names and art, or assets you have the right to use from the Creator Store.
• Pick your own title. Don't put another game's name in yours to borrow its players.

Build one with BloxMaps

The BloxMaps Game Maker builds an original game in this format from a sentence: its own name, characters and map, with the UI, shop and gameplay systems, in one Roblox Studio file. Press the button to open it with this prompt (change anything you like first):

Building and previewing is free: 3 previews a day on the Free plan (games, maps and UIs together), and the plans build more. Exporting the finished .rbxl costs $14.99 once per game, or is included with the Studio plan. Then you open it in Roblox Studio, change what you want and publish it (how to publish).

The Game Maker's door run format builds this kind of game with its own rooms and threats: a lobby with an elevator that takes a group down, a pre-run shop, numbered doors, hiding spots, drawers to search and a puzzle room, as a lobby place and a game place. It's in Beta.

More ideas in this format

• Grand hotel night

  A haunted hotel horror run with 100 numbered doors, open them one by one, hide in a closet when the lamps flicker and find the room keys

  Make this game
• Hundred door manor

  100 doors through a creepy old manor, search every dresser for brass coins and hide in the wardrobes when something roars down the hall

  Make this game
• Asylum door run

  A door run through an abandoned asylum where every numbered door leads deeper, hide in lockers and grab the keys from the nurse desks

  Make this game
• Elevator to door one

  Ride the old hotel elevator down with your friends and start at door one, every room after that is built fresh and something waits behind a door

  Make this game
• Blind librarian

  A hotel horror where door fifty opens on a huge library, a blind giant listens for footsteps while you crouch and find the book clues

  Make this game
• Greenhouse in the dark

  Reach the dark glass conservatory near the end of a 100 doors hotel run, black roots on the floor and a roar you only hear

  Make this game

See all Roblox game ideas, or other popular formats on make a game like the Roblox hits.