If you're trying to build a Squid Game-style experience, getting a solid roblox red light green light script is the first thing on your to-do list. It sounds simple enough on paper—stop when it's red, go when it's green—but anyone who's spent ten minutes in Roblox Studio knows that "simple" can get complicated pretty fast once you factor in lag, player movement, and that one guy who always tries to exploit his way to the finish line.
The beauty of this game mechanic is its tension. You want that feeling where a player is sweating, trying to let go of the "W" key at just the right millisecond. To get that right, your script needs to be snappy and, more importantly, fair. Let's break down how to actually put one of these together without pulling your hair out.
How the logic actually works
Before you start typing out lines of Luau, you've got to think about the "brain" of the game. At its core, a roblox red light green light script is just a big loop. It toggles a boolean (a true/false value) that tells the game whether it's safe to move or not.
But you can't just say "if moving and red, then die." Why? Because Roblox is a physics-based engine. Even after a player stops pressing a key, their character might slide a tiny bit due to momentum. If your script is too strict, players will get eliminated even when they think they stopped in time. That's the fastest way to get people to rage-quit your game. You need to build in a tiny bit of "grace" logic.
Setting up the main loop
Most people start with a script inside ServerScriptService. You want the server to be the source of truth because if you handle the "kill" logic on the client, hackers will just disable the script and walk right to the end.
The loop usually looks something like this: wait a random amount of time, turn the light green, wait again, then turn it red. Using math.random for the wait times is key. If the pattern is always exactly five seconds, players will just time it and the game becomes boring. You want them to be caught off guard.
When the state switches to "Red," that's when the script needs to start checking every single player in the game. You can use a for loop to iterate through the players in the workspace and check their movement status.
Detecting movement without the lag
This is where things get interesting. How do you actually know if a player is moving? There are a few ways to do it, but some are better than others.
One common method is checking the MoveDirection property of the player's Humanoid. If MoveDirection.Magnitude is greater than zero, they're trying to move. This is great because it catches keyboard input and controller sticks. However, it doesn't always catch players who are falling or being pushed by someone else.
Another way is to track their RootPart's velocity. If the velocity is high, they're moving. A lot of developers use a combination of both. You take a "snapshot" of the player's position the moment the light turns red. Then, a few milliseconds later (the grace period), you start checking if their current position is further away from that snapshot. If the distance change is too big, boom—elimination.
Handling the "Elimination" part
Once your roblox red light green light script decides a player moved when they shouldn't have, you have to deal with them. The classic way is to just set their Humanoid.Health to 0. It's effective, it's dramatic, and everyone knows what it means.
If you want to be a bit more fancy, you can trigger a sound effect—like a gunshot or a zap—at the player's position. You could even use a RemoteEvent to tell all the other players' clients to show a visual effect, like a puff of smoke or some red particles. Just remember to keep the actual "killing" on the server side so nobody can cheat death.
The importance of a grace period
I mentioned this earlier, but it's worth doubling down on. If you've ever played a game where you clearly stopped but the game killed you anyway, you know how frustrating it is. This happens because of "latency" or "ping." What the player sees on their screen is usually a few milliseconds behind what the server sees.
In your roblox red light green light script, you should add a task.wait(0.2) or something similar right after the light turns red before the "movement check" becomes lethal. This gives the player's computer enough time to tell the server "Hey, we stopped!" This tiny window makes the game feel much more responsive and fair, even if the player has a slightly slow internet connection.
Adding the visual and audio cues
A script that just sits in the background isn't very fun. You need to connect it to something the player can see. Usually, this is a big doll head that turns around or a simple traffic light system.
You can use TweenService to rotate a part (like a doll's head) 180 degrees whenever the state changes. While the head is turning, that's your "yellow light" phase. It gives the players a visual warning. You can also play a song—we all know the one—and speed it up as the game goes on. To sync the music with the script, you can use the Sound.Ended event or just time your waits to match the length of the audio clip.
Dealing with exploiters
Let's be real: people are going to try to cheat. They might try to teleport to the end or change their walk speed. Your roblox red light green light script should have some basic sanity checks.
For example, you can check the distance between the player's current position and their position one second ago. If they traveled 500 studs in one second, they're clearly teleporting. You can also keep an eye on Humanoid.WalkSpeed on the server. If it's higher than your game's default, you can kick them or just reset their character. It's not foolproof, but it'll stop the most basic scripts.
Making it your own
The cool thing about coding your own roblox red light green light script is that you can add twists. Maybe the floor gets slippery during the red light? Maybe players can push each other? Once you have the basic "Stop/Go" logic working, you can start layering on these features to make your game stand out from the hundreds of other clones on the platform.
Don't be afraid to experiment with the timing, too. Sometimes a really fast "Green" light followed by a long "Red" light creates way more tension than a steady rhythm. It's all about that psychological pressure.
Wrapping it up
Building a roblox red light green light script is a great project because it covers the basics of game loops, player detection, and server-client communication. It's not just about making a part turn red; it's about managing the state of the game and making sure everyone is playing by the same rules.
If you get stuck, just remember to keep your logic simple. Start with a loop, add a movement check, and then polish it with sounds and visuals. Before you know it, you'll have a functional game that players will keep coming back to—even if they do get a bit salty when they move at the last second. Happy scripting!