Five years of shipping games together.
Smokestack is where it goes next.
Marissa Cheves and Benjamin Marsh have made Roblox games together for five years. Marissa designs them and Ben builds them. Their first shipped game was Pirates vs Ninjas, a multiplayer shooter. Marissa also pitched The Block, a Roblox nightclub experience, which Roblox went on to produce and ship.
Smokestack is the studio they started together. Today it runs Borders RTS on Roblox, publishes casino games on Stake, and designs games for other studios.
We’re a small team. Our own AI-assisted production pipeline lets us ship more than our headcount suggests.
5+ projects together across 3 teams, including Pirates vs Ninjas and an early alpha of Borders RTS.
Supersocial 
Audioscape 
Phoenix Media Team
Three people covering design, engineering, and growth.
Marissa Cheves
CEO
Five years designing Roblox games. Lead designer on everything she and Ben have shipped, including Pirates vs Ninjas. Pitched The Block, a Roblox nightclub experience that Roblox produced and shipped.
Benjamin Marsh
CTO
Engineer on everything he and Marissa have shipped, including Pirates vs Ninjas. Specializes in gameplay systems, networking, and data. Leads development on our original Roblox games, starting with Borders RTS.
Alexzander Berrigan
CMO
Runs growth for our original games. Grew organic traffic 30× across our Roblox titles.