A little room for a very real place
A few islands in the sky became a place people kept returning to. This is a scrapbook for the swords, the impossible bridges, the ads, and everybody who carried a piece of SFOTH somewhere new.
“Death before dishonor.” Falling off a plank remains an honorable exception.
01 / A HISTORY IN CLUES
John Shedletsky, then Telamon, built a sword arena where the platforms were as dangerous as the other players. The Original had Battle Armor and heal pads, but none of the later special blades. A player reviewing it in December 2008 called it Roblox's first sword-fighting level.
In II, a March guide sent players over three ropes for Firebrand and past Phantom Plates and rotating lava bricks for Ice Dagger. An April visitor found Illumina, Darkheart, and Poisoner in III. The chase for a sword had become part of the fight.
A May 1 capture of John's main Roblox place still calls it Sword Fight on the Heights III, with 102,887 visits and 1,255 favorites. By July 25, a player was reviewing IV and describing Ghostwalker, Windforce, disappearing pads, and high spawn points. The exact changeover day remains unverified.
The Original did not vanish as the numbered games grew: it had a separate, active Roblox place by May 2008. A December review praised its small arena and single Battle Armor power-up. In 2009, one player wrote that many sword fighters still preferred its plain duels to IV's special weapons.
John was still tending the arena after IV. In 2009 he noted a jump-pad bug; in 2010 he invited the Roblox admins back for an afternoon of sword fights.
A contemporary fan-news report names ninjabart122 as the winner of a community contest for a new SFOTH IV logo. That April, Roblox created a Sword Fight on the Heights Sugar Egg, giving the arena an official collectible of its own.
Roblox and Fox Pictures made a Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters edition of the map. It traded the familiar armory for four water and ice weapons; collecting all four awarded a Golden Fleece that let its wearer fly. The arena's routes had become recognizable enough to carry a whole themed event.
John's dated place notes start with a May 2020 round of bug, jump-pad, and mobile fixes. In June he updated every sword and item: Windforce, Darkheart, and Ghostwalker were repaired, Touchstone gained a new effect, and dead players' dropped swords stopped dealing damage. A new trailer followed in January 2021.
Read John's update notes ↗When the old place became inaccessible, John suspected Roblox's age guidelines had disabled its Play button. He posted that he thought he had fixed it and asked players to tell him if it was still broken.
Read John's update ↗Roblox featured SFOTH IV in the 2007 chapter of The Hunt: Roblox 20. John's place notes thank Quenty and record a return to 20-player servers that September.
02 / FOUR PASSES AT THE HEIGHTS
The first Heights was a straightforward sword arena. A player writing in 2009 remembered the original as a place to fight without the later special blades.
Read a player's history ↗The map spread out. A player's March guide describes ropes, bridges, springs, Firebrand, Ice Dagger, a medkit, a shield, Battle Armor, and Jet Boots already in the fight.
Read the 2008 player guide ↗Illumina, Darkheart, and a green sword then called Poisoner were among the prizes a visitor named in April. The chase for a particular sword was becoming its own route through the map.
Read the 2008 visit ↗A July visitor described Ghostwalker, Windforce, and disappearing pads. A 2009 player's history also credits IV with Touchstone. This is the version that kept welcoming players back.
Read the July 2008 account ↗SFOTH asks you to win a fight and to reach the fight in the first place. Every good sword run is also a small obstacle course: planks, wobbling platforms, disappearing tiles, and an awful lot of sky below.
The Original's 2007 date comes from later records; a first-hand 2007 page has not been recovered. Contemporary posts place II in March and III in April 2008; a surviving May 1 Roblox page still names III, while a July 25 review names IV. These are evidence windows, not exact launch days. The March II guide already documents Jet Boots.
03 / THE WORLD AS IT WAS
Several surviving captures are undated.
04 / THE USER AD WALL
User Ads were player-made images that ran in paid slots on Roblox pages and linked to the thing being promoted. In the Tix era, creators bid Tickets for a share of those slots; a higher bid meant the ad appeared more often.
05 / PROOF YOU WERE THERE
Twelve badges belong to John's original Roblox place.
Pwned ShedletskyDefeat John. His entire badge description: “Ouch.”See badge on Roblox ↗
Pwned Shedletsky *EPIC*Defeat John with a normal sword.See badge on Roblox ↗
Blame JohnJohn's badge note says only: “You got pwned.”See badge on Roblox ↗
OMG It's Shedletsky!Roblox has since removed this badge's description.See badge on Roblox ↗
Meta PwnDefeat someone who has defeated John.See badge on Roblox ↗
Two limited-time quests brought new badge art to the Heights for Roblox's anniversary event. The event period has ended.
Badge names, dates, and goals come from Roblox's badge list ↗. The Hunt dates come from Roblox's event page ↗. An enabled badge listing does not confirm that its earning condition still works in the live place.
06 / MADE BY THE PEOPLE WHO PLAYED
07 / THE HEIGHTS TRAVEL
Diva Dan rebuilt the arena for Mannpower, with portals, powerups, and Roblox death sounds.
See the Workshop map ↗
Average made a Hammer-brush port with teleports, conveyors, jump pads, and the classic secret.
See the Workshop map ↗
bird fellow turned the map into a sword-collecting Zombies adventure.
See the Workshop map ↗
not toby fox but whatever made the arena a fighting-game stage.
See the Workshop stage ↗
The SFOTH Community's remaster expands the classic map with new swords, powerups, and secrets.
Visit Reforged ↗08 / PRESS PLAY
Filmed at an RDC party against a lava-lit arena.
Video shared by Simon · September 2025
See the original post on X ↗
RetroDan and Girl_Ukr discuss the series and its fan projects.
Watch the conversation ↗09 / CREDITS FOR THIS VERSION
SFOTH runs on work by a lot of other people. They built tools, wrote docs, fixed bugs, and shared it all. I got to bring this game to the web because of them. — John
Apache 2.0 license ↗
Apache 2.0 license ↗
MPL 2.0 license ↗
Provides SFOTH's relay implementation when players can't connect directly.
The C# host, room workers, and browser WebAssembly runtime.
SFOTH's native WebRTC build also uses libjuice, usrsctp, Mbed TLS, plog, and nlohmann/json. The TURN service also uses Pion logging.
John, Loved of Muses
5 KillsSee badge on Roblox ↗
20 KillsSee badge on Roblox ↗
97 Kills
Blademaster
4 Sword Collector
The Signature Shedletsky Secret