*SUPER* Mario Maker (Wii-U)

[Blacklightning]

Checkpoints, however, might be possible as DLC. They'll have to force playtests to be able to win from the checkpoint(s) as well, though.

I honestly wouldn't mind this. Besides making certain types of stages playable again, this would actually compartmentalize testing quite a bit, allowing you to playtest chunks of level at a time (start to checkpoint 1, checkpoint 1 to checkpoint 2, checkpoint 2 to goal flag, and so on) rather than the entire thing in one sitting. It would require putting checkpoints all on a single route to ensure the player can trip every one, but nobody said making a good level was easy. =V

[Conando]

I made a few stages myself, and I hope they aren't too bad. They're mostly simple because I'm just trying to grasp the basics of Mario play right now.

A2C3-0000-0034-391D

That's my castle level Tricky Skull Raft, which I hope isn't actually either too easy or unfair in someway, I named it as such just because I noticed a lot of people have trouble clearing my created stages on Mario Maker right now.

FF09-0000-0032-6459

This one is really more of a joke level, since people just generally aren't fans of water levels I made one that kind of has obvious ways to circumvent any bullshit. It also has a certain Mystery Mushroom costume as the only power up in it.

This is my first actual attempt so it's kind of screwy at the end, I threw in free 1-ups at the end because I wasn't that confident in it being fair.

F089-0000-0027-A607

I've been using NSMU mostly because I'm just so into wall jumping.

[Junko]

 

[Jason Berry]

My Sonic Runners homage

E907-0000-0035-CE31

[JezMM]

I'd be fine with playtesting my levels from both spawn and checkpoint honestly.  Just make them a late game unlockable.

 

With my stages, I've definitely been trying to make it so any puzzles can never reach a state where they are unwinnable - any required elements spawn from pipes rather than blocks, and I always make sure to telegraph hidden block placements through setups where it's near impossible to NOT find them early on in the course, followed by similar setups later on.  I do think the game should teach rookie creators to be wary of usage of mandatory hidden blocks, P-Switches, and power-ups to beat the level, but I'm not sure what the most elegant way to do it would be.

 

I also feel it'd be nice to be able to mark your stage by difficulty.  It's fun to make courses that require dashing, springing off enemies and crouch jumping to clear etc, but a lot of kids and new players have no idea how to do these techniques (remember even the toughest mandatory NSMBU courses are usually clearable using minimal dashing, if one watches the Super Guide playthroughs, designed for unexperienced players).  Being able to mark stages as recommended for beginners, intermediate, or experts, would be great.  They could even have the game recommend a difficulty to you based on YOUR performance beating the course to qualify for upload.  If you've used such techniques or taken a fair bit of damage, it'll recommend one of the upper two.  If you beat the stage with very little dashing, or advanced techniques, the game can assume it is suitable for beginners (and probably made by such a player) and will recommend that difficulty.

The game could even track your success rate on each difficulty to generate suggestions for other people's courses.  If you mostly play Beginner stages, and fail repeatedly on an Intermediate stage, the option to suggest to the author that it may in fact be an "expert" stage will not appear - but if you mostly play Intermediate stages and fail repeatedly, the option to suggest to the author that it would be better marked as an "expert" stage will appear, etc.

Just ideas of course, I dunno how well a suggestion-based system would work like this in practice (where every component is supported by the assumption that the other components are correct in their judgement of course difficulty/player skill).

Edited September 14, 2015 by JezMM

[YoshiAngemon]

Here's my first stage, made on Saturday, after I bought the game and an Olimar amiibo:

DAFF-0000-0023-C25E

At first it's like an homage to the Thousand Year Door Bowser Castle stage, that Bowser goes through, but I added a star in a mass of brick blocks. The trick is kicking the Koopa Troopa to the right, getting the star, and racing against Time to get to the Bowser Enemy stack before invincibility runs out. Even then, you have Fire Flowers to defeat Bowser, Bowser Jr., and a Hammer Bros. I'm thinking of making a Ghost House level that would include a sound file of Donald saying "Boo." and Goofy screaming in fear of it, from that Mickey Mouse cartoon "Potatoland." I woke up to that a few times, and it got my heart jumping, and to keep me energized for school.

[Blacklightning]

I also feel it'd be nice to be able to mark your stage by difficulty.

I feel like the game already does something like this automatically, at least as far as 100 Mario mode is concerned - Easy stages tend to be relatively simple to clear with 0 deaths even for a Mario rookie like me, and for what little I've played of Expert I feel like it could potentially reach Kaizo levels later on. How the game actually determines this, I have no idea, possibly something along the lines of death count in clearing it - which makes me wonder how my two stages are ranking considering maybe three people each have actually beaten them. If the ranking rules were more clear, and they displayed outside of 100 Mario, I certainly wouldn't complain.

This talk of levels becoming unwinnable did give me a few ideas to boost my gimmick levels once I have to reupload them, in any case, so that's pretty good to know.

[JezMM]

Yeah I've noticed the algorithm for 100 Mario Challenge seems to be fairly accurate too.  Expert is pretty tough, it's almost got unfun at some points, lots of skipped stages because, well, unfortuantely most hard player made stages are not as expertly crafted as Nintendo's own.  Some people need to better learn how to telegraph their puzzles and leaps of faith.  I'll never forgive the person who literally did an arrow of coins pointing down into a pit, with the reveal of a second arrow pointing to the right (where the actual land was, easily jumpable to from where I jumped off), only came into view when it was too late to do anything about it.

Edited September 14, 2015 by JezMM

[Tailikku]

Yeah I've noticed the algorithm for 100 Mario Challenge seems to be fairly accurate too.  Expert is pretty tough, it's almost got unfun at some points, lots of skipped stages because, well, unfortuantely most hard player made stages are not as expertly crafted as Nintendo's own.  Some people need to better learn how to telegraph their puzzles and leaps of faith.  I'll never forgive the person who literally did an arrow of coins pointing down into a pit, with the reveal of a second arrow pointing to the right (where the actual land was, easily jumpable to from where I jumped off), only came into view when it was too late to do anything about it.

You think that's bad?  There was one stages that gives you 10 seconds to clear it, with a fast autoscroll and gives you a propeller 'shroom.  Obviously you need to use the 'shroom to clear the lava, since it's too wide for your jumps, but you can't actually clear it.

[Mystwalker]

^ In that case it doesn't seem as bad since the goal seems clear: cross the lava pit and get to the goal in 10 seconds (maybe try drilling downwards while mid-air to reduce air time and regain momentum earlier?). It's hard in terms of precision and overall margin of error the creator gives to the player, I think.

In Jez's case it's a level that deliberately tricks you into your death, or levels with huge blind jumps that you can't telegraph no matter what (people not using coins to help out with these jumps really baffle me). Or levels that are just plain spammy for the sake of "lol enemy spam is fun"... Or the "Choose the incorrect door with no tell whatsoever and you're dead LOL" situation (had to throw this one in a joke level I did)... There's a lot to be said about bad level design in this game.

Right now I'm mostly playing levels from Course World or my Follow list. I haven't had the biggest of trouble in Expert 100-Mario besides the very first attempt ending in Game Over (I still haven't finished with my life count above 50 though...), but right now I don't feel too compelled to go back in because the thought of having a series of dull levels just turns me off somehow.

 

Anyway, level sharing! (previous levels)

You Probably Saw This Coming (FE3D-0000-0034-27A0)
Totally not a joke level. It definitely doesn't follow along with the current discussion either.

Crescent Moon Mansion (v1.2) (3D4F-0000-0041-2D29)
A witch chose to take a detour on her journey to explore an abandoned building.

Drill Dash (4D9D-0000-003E-2FE2)
Exploring the idea of using a Propeller Shroom to hover over stuff in a small tunnel. Running shoes are advised!

Edited September 17, 2015 by MickX

[Cola]

Got a few minutes before class starts, so I'll drop one of my levels.

 

10 Seconds or Less - (E9DD-0000-001B-E52E)

 

I'm pretty proud of it.

[Jeffhog]

ID: ABB7-0000-0038-309E

I don't know if anyone has gone about doing this yet, but I just spent all weekend long (while juggling work and feeling a little under the weather) recreating Green Hill Zone: Act 1 as faithfully as I possibly could. Everything down from ring and enemy placement, to springs, to crumbling platforms, and even to the trees and vines – with some minor creative liberties here and there with added baddies and a few hidden bonuses – has been reproduced as much as I could manage and have the patience for, to fit within the parameters of Super Mario Bros. See if you can stay on the upper road, or else fall to the lower and more arduous path below!

That being said, I plan on remaking Acts 2 and 3 as well.

...and maybe the 8bit versions.

...

...and Marble Zone.

Edited September 14, 2015 by VizardJeffhog
Glaring oversight in the original stage, fixed up with new ID!

[JezMM]

Made a fair few courses between first one I posted and this one (and one since), but I feel this is my best currently.  I was going for an intermediate difficulty:

Midnight Multiplex - (822C-0000-0022-54A7)

Coin Count: 100

I spent like 3 hours on this course and I’m super pleased with it.  I used the SMB3 Underground theme to imply a city aesthetic against a night sky.  Travel in and around skyscrapers and buildings to reach the goal, with bullet bills and doughnut blocks both helping and threatening you with danger along the way.  I tried to keep the challenges interesting throughout and the difficulty very fair on this one, something akin to an average World 5 or 6 Mario course.  Naturally of course, there is some bonus challenge if you want to try and find all 100 coins!

Edited September 14, 2015 by JezMM

[Conando]

I noticed the Podoboos in my first castle stage weren't working properly, so I had to reupload the stage.

E68F-0000-0039-9848

I also made an airship level to experiment with that, and tried to give the player the option of a branching path at one point, it should be easily noticeable in the overall stage picture (kind of a shame isn't that? Only really hidden thing is the invisible blocks)

CF7B-0000-0039-9E41

As for the issues of expert, thank god swiping stages away is a thing. I don't really expect it to be worth a go until the majority of the current "expert" stages are weeded out. Leaps of faith, 3 giant Bowsers blocking the exit (with a single fire flower to beat them), or some rush of enemies that you have to hopefully get through before dying is not proper design.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Conando

[Blacklightning]

Fed up with people finding my stages too hard (and to an extent, rightly so), I decided to make an autoplaying level, Note block waltz. (ID: 3F60-0000-0036-ACDD)

Somehow, two people have failed to complete it.

my fucking sides

[Conando]

People have failed to complete MY stages, and I thought they were pretty straight forward Mario stages (a tad generic in fact).

[Diogenes]

Put together another stage I'm happy with. Also figured out how to fake wall jumps in non-NSMB themes. Sort of.

Bullet Thrills: 64C3-0000-003A-5465

[PaddyFancy]

I created what I think is a stonking Ghost Airship stage. The code is BD58-0000-003A-BA61

[Diogenes]

A touching tale of friendship and loss.

My Best Friend, The Bowz: 2684-0000-003C-9F99

[Shade Vortex]

After seeing people play through my latest stage, I've decided it was too hard/punishing and some parts didn't work as intended. So I present to you:

Bowser's Battleground (Ver 1.1) (7526-0000-003D-B64B)

Edited September 15, 2015 by Shade Vortex

[KHCast]

So do the most difficult levels in Mario Maker make Lost Levels look easy in comparison lol?

 

Also, are the physics the same no matter which palette you use?

[WhoWhatMan]

So do the most difficult levels in Mario Maker make Lost Levels look easy in comparison lol?

 

Also, are the physics the same no matter which palette you use?

Not sure about that considering each theme has it own control quirks (EX SMB and 3 has bleh jumping control while SMW has fantastic jumping control)

[Jeffhog]

Green Hill Zone: Act 2 [B-SIDE RMX] - (C46F-0000-003F-B5B0)

Yep, I'm doing the whole shebang. Expect Act 3 sometime soon!

After remaking Act 1 (AND FINDING OUT WAYYYY TOO LATE HOW TO TURN THE MUSHROOM PLATFORMS GREEN LIKE SOME KIND OF IDIOT, HOORAY FOR HINDSIGHT), I went ahead and spent the whole day recreating the original Green Hill Zone: Act 2 from Sonic the Hedgehog. Same deal as before, with ring/coin, enemy, tree, and sunflower/vine placement as mostly faithful to the original as possible as Super Mario Maker would allow me to. #360noslopes

I say "mostly faithful" to a certain extent because of some creative liberties I took (and I'm not talking about working my way around the game's restrictions), mainly due to the fact I went ahead of myself and also threw in... well, download it for yourself to find out! Can't spoil all the fun, ya know. :3c

[Blacklightning]

Also, are the physics the same no matter which palette you use?

No. I tested it out on my autolevel last night - the biggest outlier was SMW, which from what I remember couldn't even make it past the first Thwomp. The differences can be subtle, but they're there.

[Conando]

Ok, that's REALLY cool, I didn't notice that myself. It's nice enough that they gave the 4 major styles 2D Mario has gone through, but to actually have the gameplay down to the physics is amazing.

Edited September 16, 2015 by Conando