If for some reason you haven’t been following my weary labors over at USgamer (and if not, how dare you), my documentary tale of evolving from a terrible amateur level designer to a not-entirely-incompetent one is more or less complete now:
Those first few levels sure do suck, eh? But I’m pretty happy with the final few, at least. The media servers (and the media version of the game!) self-destruct before the game’s proper launch next week, and I’m kind of OK with that. It’ll be fun to go back through the process of unlocking the tools and making levels with the knowledge I’ve gained — not unlike returning to any other game after beating it and stomping the early stages with high-level skills.
I’ve also reviewed Super Mario Maker, and wouldn’t you know — it’s pretty good. In fact, I believe it’s only the third game I’ve given top marks at USG in the more than two years the site’s been up and running. The first being Shin Megami Tensei IV and the second being… uh, last week, actually. 3D Gunstar Heroes is pretty fantastic, it turns out.
Let’s exchange level codes, shall we?
Shows what you know! I went there this morning specifically to catch up because you haven’t been posting them on Tumblr.
The bit about having your wife play through your levels reminded me of when you and Bob interviewed Ron Gilbert a few weeks back, and he said he’d watch people play his games without giving them any help to figure out what worked and what didn’t. Was that in your mind here?
It actually wasn’t! It just seemed the sensible thing to do.
I thoroughly enjoyed your Daily Mario series! I can’t remember the last time I was this excited about an upcoming game release.