One forklift is driving through a road below a blue, open sky in a seemingly perfect peace. Quietly, the cart touches a tiny red block, no bigger than its tire, and like a tornado it is suddenly blown to the sky, spinning like a top, before it bounces to the ground at least a dozen times and ends up upside down. That is game over.
Wildly spinning forklifts made the video game Become Forklift Certified Obby viral on social media. Since its release in April 2023, the game received explosive attention on TikTok, as hundreds of videos of hilarious game overs were posted and liked by millions of users. The game was played over 37 million times and famous YouTubers such as Sketch featured the game.
But despite the attention across the internet, not much about the developer was known to the global audience. People knew that the developer is active with the username Tumblewede, and manages a Roblox group that is humorously named Appalling Games, but his thoughts and motivations behind the scenes of his games largely remained as mysteries.
Recently, however, I had an unexpected, but unhonorable opportunity to do an in-person interview with the developer of the game himself to ask about his motivations, feelings, and afterthoughts behind creating the popular game. It surprised me to know who the developer really was not just because of his impressive depth of knowledge and pleasant personality, but also because I actually knew him already. To my surprise, he was not only a part-time game developer but also a junior at Rick Reedy High School, who might be more familiar to the readers with the name Brandon Thames.
The Developer
I was astonished to realize that the developer behind the notable video game was right inside my school, and not just in my school but also in one of my classrooms.
In school, Thames is a junior student, a student officer in the Reedy Engineering Club, and a national qualifier of Business Professionals of America in 2024. However, he is not widely known in school for his life in game development.
“I would mention it and stuff, but not a whole lot of people in the school outside my friends know that I’m the one that made the game,” Thames said.
On the internet, Thames develops games using Roblox, an online game platform and a game creation system. Thames also manages his YouTube channel, where he uploads educational tutorials for Roblox game development, and trailers of his games.
Thames’ passion for game development started early in his life. He started programming around the second grade when he started from Scratch. In 2017, he started making games on Roblox, which is an online platform to play, create, and monetize video games. In 2019, he published his first successful Roblox video game, Swimming. His highest commercial success started in 2023 when his game Become Forklift Certified Obby gained explosive attention on the internet. He was a freshman at the time he made the game.
What is the Game About?
The purpose of the game is in its title. The phrase “Become Forklift Certified” shows the player’s purpose of completing the obstacle course and becoming a so-called “certified operator” as the game entitles the player who completed the game. The game is similar to an obstacle course consisting of 35 stages, but by driving a forklift rather than with feet. The game is not affiliated with Occupational Safety and Health Administration Forklift Certification or any other professional certification.
The game introduces unique controls based on rotating the wheels with A and D keys, and forward and backward movements with W and S keys on the keyboard. Touchscreens are used in mobile devices. The movement controls based on rotating wheels resembles the operation of a physical forklift.
The start of the game is simple. At first it only basic movements and allows the players to understand the controls of the game. However, over time the obstacles become more complex and creative, and they seriously test the player’s technique.
A good example is Stage 8 when players have to adjust the height of the fork to avoid the red bricks that would otherwise easily bump into them. Players can use Q and E keys on the keyboard to vertically move the fork.
Road to Become Forklift Certified
The title “certified” is not just a joke. A variety of obstacles, including ice, conveyor belts, and all sorts of special-effect obstacles critically test players, and their combination creates even more numerous challenges.
Most players would start the game as a complete beginner of the game’s unique movement controls, and many of them struggle before they master it.
By Stage 6, I was hoping that a forklift would grow legs in its bottom so that I could hop over the obstacles—that’s how much I struggled at first.
“99.9% of players would never beat this game,” Thames said. “Statistically, if you look at the amount of people who have played it and the number of people who beat it, there’s like 15 million individual people who played it and only about 10,000 who actually beat it.”
Players have to solve abstract problems purely with their problem-solving ability. Not much instructions, and not much directions are given, and players have to find their own answers by actively engaging with the obstacles. Players become familiar with failures and learn to improve upon the past.
At heart of the game is patience, perseverance, and the exhilaration when the hard work achieves the goal. The game demonstrates that working hard despite the failure is what brings an ultimate success.
“When you challenge yourself to do something really difficult it can be annoying, like, you keep failing over and over and over again, but failing a hundred times will just make your victory feel a hundred times more rewarding,” Thames said.
As for Stage 6, I started to use a first-person viewpoint after a series of attempts. It was a method that I discovered with my own effort, and it allowed me to visualize the position of the wheels and the red blocks more precisely. I was able to complete the Stage by looking at different angles.
Message to the World
Become Forklift Certified Obby is not a game that appeals to the players with mindless design or repetition. It is a brave deviant; it challenges the dominant algorithm of effortless, brainless pleasures and instead fills the game with serious challenges. It is not meant to please the players just for staying in the game, but it more honestly reflects the reality, where people need to make the effort to claim the reward. We all hear that failure brings success, but the game teaches even further that it is the effort behind failures that can bring its power to another level. It is not just thoughtlessly repeating the same failure over and over that brings a positive outcome. Players will fail in the game, and they will fail in the game over multiple times, but the reason they can bounce back is because they are constantly trying during each of their attempts, and because of that effort they can eventually accomplish even the most remarkable achievements. Players learn the power of effort, and what can come after the effort. The entire game sets up players to fall in love with paying more effort. Throughout the game, players become forklifts themselves, patiently lifting the weight, moving forward to a better future, and enjoying it.
To me, the game is a message to our modern world, and especially to our new generation. 58% of Roblox users are under the age of 16 according to the research. If people in the new generation are constantly, and solely faced with brainless, and effortless pleasures, as social media and video games present to them today, it is the threatening danger that the same will be for the future of humanity. Being a high school student himself, Thames understands this problem more sincerely than anyone else. It is easy to say it to adults or lecture forcefully to students during class, but for something to actually change, it has to be done on a platform that people in the new generation themselves will see, listen to, and experience first hand, with full engagement, voluntarily like how they would watch a TV show. This game accomplishes exactly just that. It is a game that is enjoyable, and significant to children’s development. In fact, because it is available in Roblox, on a platform that the majority consists of new generations, the game successfully advocates for developmentally beneficial games for the people who need it the most. It teaches the lessons, and those lessons—perseverance, resilience, a positive mindset, and the ability to improve upon failure—are not just skills that go away after completing the game, but what stick for the rest of one’s life. To speak to our society’s future first-hand, and to spread the lesson of perseverance, the game is sending a message in a media that is most accessible, enjoyable, and digestible to the eyes of the new generation that only itself can achieve.
The game’s unique subject and its internal message not only entertained me but also inspired my passion and perseverance. Become Forklift Certified Obby will continue to be in the list of my favorite video games, and I encourage anyone to play the game and learn and enjoy the art of climbing up a plane mountain.
“I think people are motivated to continue playing because they learn to not give up,” Thames said. “They learn to persevere and it really helps them maintain their patience. I think people can learn from this. I think video games are not just brain rot; you can actually learn something from this game.”