Mario Maker

[pbj]

Only took Nintendo three years to release a game worth playing for the Wii U.  Anyone else picked this up?

[Howard_Casto]

I'll be joining you this October.  I've got stuff to do and I have a feeling if I pick it up now, all those things will be put on hold.  I know it's frikkin lighting up youtube.... you can't throw a stone without a Mario Maker video showing off some crazy level.

[wp34]

I'll be waiting until Christmas for similar reasons as Howard.  Looking forward to it though.

[pbj]

Don't be sensible.  This is our hobby.  Embrace it.  Pull that wallet out of your pocket and do it.

 

[pbj]

A very simple level with a couple of solutions, but I think once you punch my code in we can be fu-fu-fuh-friends?

8D8C-0000-0031-573D

[SavannahLion]

Saw this while picking up my son's first Pokemon and it might be what'll get me to finally pick up the Wii U for Christmas this year. I have to pick up at least three of every controller to prevent the inevitable fights between the kids so this is going to be a pricey Christmas gift.

Seriously though, it didn't take Nintendo three years, it took them something like thirty years. I used to have a version of Lode Runner that let you build your own levels and it was something of a pipe dream even back then to have the same feature for the Mario games.

[Vigo]

Only took Nintendo three years to release a game worth playing for the Wii U.

Sounds like the best addition to the mario franchise in almost a decade. Does it let you play player designed levels openly like Little Big Planet, or is nintendo too afraid that people will write the F-bomb in coin blocks across the sky?

Heres to hoping for a 3ds release. 

Seriously though, it didn't take Nintendo three years, it took them something like thirty years. I used to have a version of Lode Runner that let you build your own levels and it was something of a pipe dream even back then to have the same feature for the Mario games.

Yep, I used to love playing Kikstart 2 because of the level creator. (third game in this video).

[vwalbridge]

This caught my eye. Play the first level of Sonic as Sonic...

[pbj]

Friend of mine did one I've yet to beat:

5C0F-0000-0044-E01E

[Howard_Casto]

So I got the game and I'm loving it, but for a guy that can literally code a simple game from scratch it's rather tedious having to wait for new items to drop.  Maybe in a week or three I'll be able to make the levels I want to do.

First on the agenda is an ice-climbers level.  That game gets no love and I think Mario is similar enough to do something fun with the concept of constantly going up. 

[pbj]

Get a level posted so we can follow you.

 

[Howard_Casto]

Well I've been playing around with it for a total of 3 hours.  Let me get used to it first. 

[Howard_Casto]

Ok enough stuff dropped to where I could make something fairly interesting:

0469-0000-013F-C9ED

[pbj]

Good level, took me a few lives to figure it out.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah those horizontal springboards are a ---smurfette---... until you figure out how to ride them and then it's easy. 

[Howard_Casto]

I'm waiting for the bowser/castle items to drop then I've got an idea for another level.  Man this is annoying, but then again spreading it out is probably the only thing holding my interest. 

[Howard_Casto]

Dear god this game is going to be the death of me.  After I unlocked the stuff I started realizing that simple machines and logic can be built using various interactive objects in the game.  I've got a Donkey Kong re-creation going on...... I need to figure out how to do an 8 part key for the rivets on the final stage and then I'm done. 

Man I'd kill for some colored p switch blocks.  It'd sure make multi-stage events a lot easier. 

I really like the game, but it puzzles me why it's incomplete.  There are a ton of enemies and objects missing from SMW and SMB3.  Also not being able to end the level via killing a specified enemy seems like a major thing to leave out. 

[Howard_Casto]

I made a test level to try and figure out the problem I have with my DK level.  It's a 4-part switch.... you have to enter each door (which could be put anywhere on the level) once and then a p-switch drops so you can hit it. 

That's my issue though... it's only a 4-way switch because you can only have 4 doors in the game.  Pipes won't help because they take you to a sub-world. 

Anyway, it's uploaded.... if anyone has any ideas let me know otherwise I'll just have to make the final stage a 4 bolt level instead of 8. 

[Howard_Casto]

I released my Donkey Kong levels earlier today as I decided I had fiddled with them enough.  All 4 boards are represented to the best of my ability.  I'm fairly satisfied with how they turned out.  The difficulty is kind of high though.... not DK hard, but still pretty hard. 

[pbj]

Cool level... Got stuck here:

[Howard_Casto]

Your imgr isn't showing up..... had to go there manually. 

It looks like you got it from the comment in Miiverse but for anyone else.......  The four doors are keys.... go in, let the shell do it's work and go back through the door. 

How do you comment on your own level?  I wanted to put a couple of notes in there. 

[PL1]

Cool level... Got stuck here:

FTFY.


Scott

[pbj]

Yeah, figured it out. 

 

[edekoning]

My son (9) is all into Mario Maker Youtube videos these days. He has even started saving up for a WiiU at €1.50 a week. The game looks like good fun.
Do the amiibos do anything else besides changing the character sprite?

[pbj]

My son (9) is all into Mario Maker Youtube videos these days. He has even started saving up for a WiiU at €1.50 a week. The game looks like good fun.
Do the amiibos do anything else besides changing the character sprite?

The 30th anniversary Mario one unlocks the giant mushroom.  You have to either save the level or unlock the mushroom every time you turn the game on.

[Howard_Casto]

The game has 120 costumes in the game.  Amiibos auto-unlock costumes.  Otherwise you have to do the Mario challenges to unlock them.  That's easy for the first 20 or so, but then you have to unlock them via 100 Mario challenge on normal mode.... which is 16 stages and takes around a half hour a go.  So if he has a favorite character he likes or something it might be worth it, but otherwise not really.  There are like 4 Yoshi costumes btw and they all look identical.  I get it, he has a new game, but wtf?

What do the costumes do?  Well aside from some neat little animations and sounds nothing (except the 25th anniversary statue of course).  They are nice to have though if you want to... I dunno, make an excite bike themed level or what have you.  Also understand that they only work on SMB 1 stages.  Probably because they had an extra power up slot on that one.

There's also the "weird mushroom" that you unlock via completing the 4 nwc stages.  What does it do?  Essentially it turns you into Luigi.  No really.... Super Mario is now tall and skinny and he can jump slightly higher. 

[Howard_Casto]

Hey I found an easter egg.  Place a door in the level and then tap on it a few times to knock. 

[vwalbridge]

Good for you Nintendo. 

Nintendo Is Deleting People's Mario Maker Stages Without Telling Them Why

[Howard_Casto]

I think I would have to see an example of the deleted levels before I could comment one way or another.  I know there are a ton of levels that are just a blank stage begging or stars or a level that gives you a superstar at the start and then just throws 20 or 30 enemies in the way of the goal flag. 

So far I think pbj is the only one to finish my donkey kong level.... most likely because it's hard.  I'm a grown man, so I'm not willing to make levels that little kids can easily beat. 

[vwalbridge]

I think I would have to see an example of the deleted levels before I could comment one way or another. 

I agree. If the levels were in fact crap then it sounds legit. But from what I have been reading, some semi-legitimate levels are just disappearing.

There are obviously a thousand ways Nintendo could handle this but I find the best was is to just let the community decide. Crappy levels can just get ignored or down-voted into oblivion.

For example, YouTube isn't deleting videos just because they are dumb and serve no purpose. If someone wants to make a stupid level then go ahead. I don't have to play it. Yea...Yea...the system can get "clogged" with stupid levels but if Nintendo has a good ranking/filing system, then this is not a problem.

Besides, kids play these games too and that would be a real bummer if some innocent kid's level got deleted just because it wasn't "good".

[Howard_Casto]

Well the problem is the 100 Mario challenges.  They pull levels from the internet at random to try and give unknown levels some publicity.  If a bunch of crap levels show up though it certainly ruins the experience.  I know I had particularly bad luck one round and 100% of the levels were troll levels.  I managed to plow through but it sure made things frustrating when I just wanted to have a little bit of fun. 

The comment system is nice, but it would be better if we could rate the difficulty of the level and flag certain types like automatic and music block levels.  I get that it takes a lot of talent to make these, but I want to PLAY the game, not watch some elaborate Rube Goldberg device go off.  Also better logic when pulling a level for the challenges would be nice.  For example if I upload a new level they should make it more likely to be featured, until, I dunno, at least 100 people have tried it.  Then it's weight could be determined by how many stars it got or what have you.  Right now I'm pretty sure it's just random. 

[Howard_Casto]

So I found a new mechanic, but I'm unsure how to use it.  Apparently if you put a magikoopa near a flagpole and they shoot the base, it will disappear and stay that way until you kill them. 

You can keep a magikoopa from teleporting by stacking them on a beetle or turtle. 

So maybe there is a creative way to use them as a switch?

The game really needs switches that end the level upon defeating the enemy.  I've faked one via putting p switches at the bottom of a SMB3 style bowser battle.... he stomps down to that level the p switch removes the rest of the floor and he dies and the p switch removes the blocks around the exit.  The only problem with that one is you have to strop them of fire Mario and raccoon Mario's powers as they can defeating him by hitting him instead of waiting for the stomp down. 

So I'm curious if any of you guys have found creative ways to do a boss battle. 

[Howard_Casto]

I don't know about the rest of you, but this snow has closed the whole state.  I'll most likely be creating MM levels today, so please check them out if you want something to do.  I released one last night based loosely on kid Icarus and there are a few others as well.  Please post a code if you are working on anything.

[thomas_surles]

is there enough on this game to where it is still playable and fun after the online servers shut down? I don't like games that become unplayable after A few years because I keep them.

[Howard_Casto]

Yes BUT the whole point of the game, in terms of playing levels anyway, is the fact that you have infinite levels to play thanks to the online capability.  I'm trying to unlock all my mystery mushroom characters, which requires you to beat 16 levels at a time and it hasn't gotten old yet due to the fact that each level is a new one.  Some of them are admittedly terrible, but there is a "swipe left" feature where you can throw the one you are playing away and be given a new one without penalty. 

You can download levels to your hard drive though and there are about 100 built in levels. 

Without the online component this game is like it's prequel Mario Paint.... wonderful if you are creative and terrible if you aren't. 

[vwalbridge]

I finally picked up the "Mario Maker Wii U" bundle just to play this game. Over the past few months I've been browsing the internet making browser bookmarks of YouTube levels that I wanted to play once I picked up this game. However, I was immediately frustrated with Nintendo's bafflingly dumb supermariomakerbookmark website. As you all know, there is no obvious way (that I'm aware of) to easily search for a course name or ID. 

But then I luckily stumbled on the Super Mario Maker Course ID Linkifier extension for Chrome.

It's so beautiful. Essentially, it scans any webpage you are on and automatically discovers course ID's and converts them to bookmarkable links for later play on your Wii U.

For example, even on this thread itself, it recognized a course ID and automaticlly linked it. If I want to bookmark it to play it later, it's as simple as clicking the plus sign.



If you are as frustrated as I was with the bookmarking process, this extension is an absolute MUST.

[Howard_Casto]

If Nintendo doesn't figure out online on this next console, I fear they might be relegated to niche gamers.  Personally it doesn't bother me at all, but everyone else sure seems to take issue with it.  Mario Kart 8 had the best implementation thus far.... start a race and people from your area are automatically added to the game.

I still fire up Mario Maker every week or so, but I quit making levels as soon as they deleted a couple of mine.  One of them had 3 stars as well, so there seems to be no rhyme nor reason as to why levels are getting deleted as others had feared. 

[vwalbridge]

If Nintendo doesn't figure out online on this next console, I fear they might be relegated to niche gamers.  Personally it doesn't bother me at all, but everyone else sure seems to take issue with it.  Mario Kart 8 had the best implementation thus far.... start a race and people from your area are automatically added to the game.

I still fire up Mario Maker every week or so, but I quit making levels as soon as they deleted a couple of mine.  One of them had 3 stars as well, so there seems to be no rhyme nor reason as to why levels are getting deleted as others had feared.

Ditto.

I've always loved Nintendo. They always find ways to be relevant, fresh and innovative. However, current ecosystem of "online" has really eluded Nintendo. The original Wii exposed Nintendo's confusion of how to handle the internet and the Wii U is only amplifying it. So they had really better figure something out for the NX. Whether Nintendo likes it or not, the internet is entrenched deeply into consoles and their future. They had better not fumble the internet again.

Also, Nintendo has always been a "2 steps forward, but 1 step backwards" kind of company. A very good example of this is Mario Maker. How can Nintendo come up with such a fantastic genius game like Mario Maker...just to turn right around and have such a terrible process for finding/bookmarking courses. Not to mention their ridiculous process of randomly deleting courses.

Nintendo loves to shoot themselves in the foot all the time. It's almost like even THEY can't understand how their own consoles/games should work. Did they not think that people were going to make a zillion courses and players were going to need a good way of sorting them?

Man, I just don't get it.

[pbj]

Hmm.. Figured something was up.  Saw some article about a mechabowser course and it kept linking me to some Mario Maker bookmark site instead of giving me a course ID.  Didn't care enough to figure it out.

Nintendo is really going to to pull something amazing out of their ass before I buy another one of their systems.  WiiU has been their crowning "only a few good games on each system" achievement.  3DS is close.

[vwalbridge]

I just can't help myself... I'm a sucker for Nintendo and Mario games. I'm admittedly behind the curve for this generations consoles and games so the WiiU feels fresh and new to me right now. And I have to admit that it still impresses me to see Mario levels in HD.

However, the guys at Nintendo seem to look at the rest of the world though some kind of distorted-reality glasses. Clearly Nintendo wants to control everything they can, so things like copywrite YouTube content and user-created levels really ties their brains in a knot. In fact, I'm pretty sure if it were up to Nintendo, the internet and YouTube would have never been invented.

Nintendo is really sitting on a goldmine of an idea with the "Maker" concept. The possibilities are endless if they just embrace their fan base's creativity. Hello? Zelda Dungeon Maker anyone?

I just wish Nintendo would stop overthinking things and just get out of their own way. Embrace their fan-base and be willing to accept the future at a faster pace.