Yeah, so, I’m making more Super Mario Maker levels. I had to start over in the retail version and kick off at the same time as everyone else, which is fine. But means I haven’t unlocked all the tools to recreate the better stages I had made in the media version… though I intend to! Beginning with the TMNT tribute and eventually culminating in the (in my opinion) pretty excellent stage I built yesterday.
My goal, I guess, is to make a full campaign’s worth of stages. I’ve always wanted to make my own game, obviously, but lacked the experience and confidence to do so. Puttering around in Super Mario Maker won’t give me the experience to make an actual game of my own, but surely it’ll be a step in the right direction.
So far, I’ve put together three stages, relying mostly on the day one and two tool set. Here are the codes and a quick description, along with an estimate of the difficulty level (bearing in mind that I use “hard” to mean “on par with an actual hard Mario stage,” not “an insufferable torture device):
Baby Steps: A Beginner’s Romp
DB3D-0000-0012-8E23 | Very easy difficulty
Another attempt to create a stage worthy of being a 1-1 level. Still not quite there, but closer than ever.
Basic Bifurcation
0AF7-0000-0017-3F81 | Easy-to-medium difficulty
Built around two principles: New Super Mario Bros.-style wall-jumping between narrow columns of pipes, and dual high/low paths that offer greater rewards for seeking out the more difficult path — it’s essentially impossible to get more than 100 points on the flagpole if you don’t take the high road.
A Spring in Your Steppe
8980-0000-001D-B3C1 | Medium-to-hard difficulty
Lots of high platforms that can only be accessed by bounding on springs. Lots of goodies tucked away for those who care to look, and a handful of shortcuts as well.
Eventually, I’ll sort these into a proper campaign that interested parties can play in sequence. Not that anyone necessarily would want to, but allow me a moment of vanity.
Edit: The TMNT dam homage is complete! I cheated and time-traveled.
Tonight I Dine on Turtle Soup
EDD0-0000-0024-CA8E | Hard difficulty
A recreation of the infamous bomb-seeking dam stage in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES. Quite a bit different from my previous version — the original Super Mario Bros. palette had nicer background elements than SMB3, and I rearranged the layout a fair amount while making spikey passages wider and easier to navigate. It’s still tough, but hopefully not unreasonably so?
You’ve definitely made huge strides since the first Daily Mario. That Refined level was quite good, and I really liked your approach of trying to simulate a tower in your last level. I’m glad your confidence has gotten a boost from this. Hope you do eventually get to make the game you want to make someday.
Enjoyed all the Daily Mario pieces immensely, and that final tower stage looked like a blast. Any chance we can get vids of your new stages (even if just a quick run-through rather than in-depth commentary) for those of us without WiiUs on which to actually play them?
(Though now that the servers are public, I suppose anyone with a WiiU and free time could LP them…)
Nice to see you’re picking up your creative trail where you left it. As a non-Super Mario Maker owner and also a non-Wii U owner, I’d love to see these stages in video with the decisions on design you made in them. Perhaps a USGamer article or feature when you have your campaign? Here’s hoping.
So what’s your analogue for the jetpack? I’m thinking water or the raccoon tail.
Thirded on the video request.
Hooray; can’t wait to play these! Daily Mario was a fantastic series and a really awesome proving ground for everything you’ve done with Anatomy of a Game. Thank you for all the wonderful writing!
I’ve only got two levels up on Maker so far. They’re definitely challenging, but I tried to keep them hard but without any silly gimmick/torture chamber style design. If you care to check ’em out:
F3E1-0000-0019-8640
7A8E-0000-0023-6565