Getting Started

Ascent is a Roblox Studio place you open and edit. Settings sit together in one folder, your models go in the usual services, and the kit's code is split into Shared, Server and Client.

No scripting needed. Every setting is a value with a comment above it.

Getting the kit

Ascent is a paid kit. Get it from the Ascent hub on Vendr, or as a member of the Ascent Discord, where the hub is linked and updates are announced. You receive:

File	What it is
Ascent Area.rbxlx	A tower place. Every Ring, Zone or other Area of your game starts from this.
Ascent Hub.rbxlx	The hub players join first, with the ring select screen. See Ring Select.
Tower Setup.rbxm	The Studio plugin that checks your place while you build. See Tower Setup Plugin.

Each new version is listed in the changelog, with anything you have to change by hand under Updating. Updating Ascent covers moving a game onto a new release.

Before You Start

You need	Why
Roblox Studio	The kit is a place file you edit in Studio.
A published place	Saving player progress needs a real place, and teleports need at least one.
Studio API access	Turn on Game Settings → Security → Enable Studio Access to API Services so saved data works while you test.

TIP

Do this on a copy of your place, not the live one. The first thing you will change is where player progress is stored, and getting that wrong on a live game is hard to undo.

Set Up Your Game

Open ReplicatedStorage > Shared > Config in the Explorer. Everything below happens in that folder.

1. Pick your save keys

Open Project and change both keys to something nobody else would use:

dataStoreKey = "MyGame_Live_v1",
dataStoreKeyStudio = "MyGame_Studio_v1",

The first is where real players' progress goes. The second is used only while you test in Studio, so testing never touches real saves. Changing either one later gives everyone a fresh, empty save.

2. List your Worlds and Areas

Open Worlds. A World is a group of destinations, and an Area is one published Roblox place inside it — a Ring, a Zone, or whatever you call yours.

worlds = {
	{
		id = "World1",
		name = "World 1 (Rings)",
		areas = {
			{ id = "Ring1", name = "Ring 1: Limbo", placeId = 123456789 },
		},
	},
},

Set hubPlaceId at the top of the same file to the Place ID players return to with Return to Hub.

3. Register your towers

Open Towers and add each tower, naming an Area id you just used:

towers = {
	ToH = { name = "Tower of Hell", difficulty = 5.33, area = "Ring1" },
},

Every place carries this list, so a tower must be here to exist outside the place you built it in. The Tower Setup plugin writes the line for you from the tower's Studio attributes.

The acronym is permanent

ToH is saved with every player who beats it. Choose it before release and never rename it.

difficulty reads as rating.sub — 5.33 is a Challenging tower (rating 5) at Low within it. See Difficulties.

4. Build the tower

Put your tower model in Workspace > Towers, named with its acronym. Then give it a spawn, a winpad, and checkpoints.

Fastest route is the Tower Setup plugin — its Towers window lists what each tower is missing and adds most of it in one click. It is a Studio plugin shipped beside the place file, so install it first. To do it by hand, follow Building A Tower.

Read this before placing checkpoints

Checkpoints are what stop a player skipping the climb, so they must sit across the path in order. See Checkpoints Are The Anti-Cheat.

5. Playtest

Press Play and check the whole loop:

• you spawn, enter the tower, and the timer starts;
• touching the winpad after passing every checkpoint wins the tower and awards tickets;
• skipping a checkpoint, or reaching the top faster than the tower's minimum time, does not — the server kicks you for it;
• dying in Normal mode ends the run, and in Practice or All Jumps puts you back at your own checkpoint;
• Practice and All Jumps modes work; and
• rejoining keeps your completion.

If something is missing, the Output window says which tower and what it needs.

6. Set up the hub

The hub is the place players join first, with the ring select screen. Make it from Ascent Hub.rbxlx and follow Setting Up The Hub.

7. Publish

Publish the hub and every place you listed in Config > Worlds. Teleports and personal servers only work in a published game, never in a Studio playtest.

Before You Publish

Go through this once before real players arrive. Most of it is reported in the Output when a server starts, in a block headed Ascent Config or Ascent setup — an empty Output is the goal.

• Save keys in Config > Project are your own, and different from each other. They cannot change after release.
• Place IDs in Config > Worlds — hubPlaceId and every Area — are your published places. The server says so if one is not in your experience.
• Admins in Config > Admin.userIds are the people you mean. The experience's owner is always one.
• Game passes in Config > GamePasses have your pass IDs, or disabled = true for the ones you do not sell. A pass left at id = 0 is off.
• Badges in Config > Towers and on your winpads are your own.
• Leaderboards LB_Towers, LB_AllJumps and LB_Elo are registered in the Creator Dashboard if you want Roblox to draw them. See Player Data.
• Webhooks, if you want them: the secrets are set, and webhooks.enabled = true in Config > Chat. See Announcements & Webhooks.
• Avatar is R6 under Game Settings → Avatar, and the two teams in Config > Project.teamNames exist.
• Every tower has checkpoints and a minimum time. The Tower Setup plugin's Towers window shows which do not.
• Build warnings in Config > Project are turned off once nothing is left to fix, so the Output stays quiet in live servers.

Where To Go Next

If you want to	Read
See every setting the kit has	Configuration Reference
Know where things live in Studio	Studio Structure
Chain towers into one run	Tower Rushes
Pay tickets and sell things for them	Tickets & Shop
Sell game passes	Game Passes
Add a setting of your own	Adding A Saved Setting
React to wins, save values of your own, add commands	Hooking Into the Kit
Move to a new release of Ascent	Updating Ascent
Write your own systems on top	Extending the Kit
Fix something that is not working	Troubleshooting