Roblox Game Finder - Apify Actor

An Apify actor that scrapes Roblox games based on user-provided keywords. The actor searches Roblox for games and returns results that match one or more of the provided keywords.

Features

• Keyword-based search: Search for games using one or more keywords
• Deduplication: Automatically removes duplicate games based on game ID
• Pagination support: Scrapes multiple pages of results
• Robust extraction: Uses multiple fallback methods to extract game information
• Comprehensive data: Extracts title, URL, game ID, description, thumbnail, and player count

Input

The actor accepts the following input parameters:

{
  "keywords": ["obby", "simulator"],
  "maxResults": 50,
  "maxPages": 5,
  "searchInDescription": false
}

Input Schema

• keywords (required): Array of strings - Keywords to search for. Games matching one or more keywords will be returned.
• maxResults (optional): Integer (1-500) - Maximum number of games to return per keyword. Default: 50
• maxPages (optional): Integer (1-20) - Maximum number of pages to scrape per keyword. Default: 5
• searchInDescription (optional): Boolean - If true, will fetch full game descriptions from detail pages and search for keywords in them. This is slower but more thorough. Default: false

Output

The actor outputs an array of game objects, each containing:

• title: Game title
• url: Full URL to the game page
• gameId: Unique Roblox game ID
• description: Game description (short description from search page, or full description if searchInDescription is enabled)
• thumbnail: Game thumbnail image URL (if available)
• playerCount: Current player count (if available)
• rating: Like/favorite percentage (if available)
• keyword: The keyword that matched this game
• scrapedAt: ISO timestamp of when the game was scraped
• Additional fields from game-stat elements (if available):
  • visits: Total visits count
  • favorites: Number of favorites
  • likes: Number of likes
  • genre: Game genre/category
  • created: Creation date
  • updated: Last updated date
  • Other stats found in .game-stat elements

Example Output

[
  {
    "title": "Adopt Me!",
    "url": "https://www.roblox.com/games/920587237",
    "gameId": "920587237",
    "description": "Adopt cute pets and build your dream home!",
    "thumbnail": "https://...",
    "playerCount": "1.2M",
    "rating": "96%",
    "visits": "30.5B",
    "favorites": "45.2M",
    "likes": "12.5M",
    "genre": "Simulation",
    "keyword": "adopt",
    "scrapedAt": "2024-01-15T10:30:00.000Z"
  }
]

How It Works

1. The actor takes keywords as input
2. For each keyword, it navigates to Roblox's game search page
3. It extracts game information from the search results using multiple selector strategies
4. Games are filtered to include only those matching at least one keyword
5. Duplicate games (same game ID) are removed
6. Results are saved to the Apify dataset

Local Development

✅ No Apify deployment needed! The actor works completely locally using the Apify SDK's local mode.

Prerequisites

1. Install Node.js 18+ if you haven't already
2. Install dependencies:

$npm install

Testing Locally (No Deployment Required)

The simplest way to test locally:

Method 1: Simple Test Script (Easiest)

Just run:

$npm test

This automatically:

• Reads INPUT.json for test input
• Runs the actor in local mode (no deployment needed)
• Saves results to ./storage/datasets/default/
• Works completely offline

Method 2: Using Environment Variable

Set the APIFY_INPUT_PATH environment variable to point to your input file:

$APIFY_INPUT_PATH=./INPUT.json npm start

Or on Windows (PowerShell):

$env:APIFY_INPUT_PATH="./INPUT.json"; npm start

Method 3: Using Apify CLI (Optional)

If you have Apify CLI installed, you can also use:

npm install -g apify-cli
apify run

This is optional - the simple npm test works without any CLI tools.

Method 4: Direct Input (for quick testing)

You can also pass input directly as an environment variable:

$APIFY_INPUT='{"keywords":["obby"],"maxResults":5,"maxPages":1}' npm start

Test Input File

A sample INPUT.json file is included with test keywords. You can modify it to test with different keywords:

{
  "keywords": ["obby", "simulator"],
  "maxResults": 10,
  "maxPages": 2
}

Viewing Results

When running locally, results will be:

• Logged to the console - You'll see progress and final count
• Saved to local storage - Results are in ./storage/datasets/default/ as JSON files

To view the results:

# After running the test, check the results
cat storage/datasets/default/*.json

Or open the JSON files in the ./storage/datasets/default/ directory.

Important Notes

• ✅ No Apify account needed - Works completely offline
• ✅ No deployment required - Test locally before deploying
• ✅ Local storage - All data saved to ./storage/ directory
• ✅ Same code - The code works the same locally and on Apify platform

Deployment

To deploy this actor to Apify:

1. Push your code to a Git repository
2. Create a new actor in Apify
3. Connect your Git repository
4. Apify will automatically build and deploy your actor

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• Apify SDK v3
• Playwright for browser automation

Notes

• The actor uses Playwright to handle dynamic content loading
• Multiple fallback selectors are used to handle changes in Roblox's HTML structure
• The actor respects rate limits by using a max concurrency of 2
• Results are automatically deduplicated by game ID