144 replies to this topic

[SteveT]

Hopefully, I'm not the only sane person on this forum and someone else picked up Mario Maker.

 

Since I am weak and bought an Olimar amiibo, my first level is Pikmin themed.

 

3841-0000-0019-7971

[Green Goblin]

Better solution:  Add our NNIDs and we should be able to see each others levels automatically 

Got the game, 8-bit Mario, Olimar and Zero Suit Samus Amiibos.  I already had Ganondorf

Edited by Green Goblin, 11 September 2015 - 07:44 PM.

[DarkJuno]

Thoughts on how they're limiting what you can do day by day?

I can see why people are annoyed and I kinda am too, but I kinda like how it's almost done as a lesson plan, where you learn each step and can play around for the rest of the "class" then they add more the next time you play. The thing that really kept me from stuff like LBP or even Modnation racers is how it just throws everything at you at once and it's overwhelming. And really, even if you go through the tutorial in this sort of game, a lot of times I'll go "Yup, got it!" then a few hours later I've already forgotten how to do it since I'm programmed to rush through to get past them.

 

Gotta say though, it's really, really easy to use and has a nice, clean interface, and it's pretty satisfying to mess with, though I haven't actually saved anything yet.....

 

Eager to keep digging in.

[SteveT]

Is there a search by friend feature?  I know you can latch onto a maker after you've played a course, but I haven't found a search.

 

DJ, they backtracked on the day-by-day thing, kind of.  Now it's based on time spent building stages or how many objects you've placed.  No one understands it, but a marathon session should be able to open everything up.  I'm kind of neutral on that.  I like easing into it, but I'm still an American and that means I hate being compelled to ease into it.

[SteveT]

918A-0000-0023-F8C6

 

Eat it, LA.

[Masamune]

I played your courses, Steve. Not bad... not bad. Try out mine, in honor of Captain Falcon himself.

 

A81A-0000-0026-ECAD

[SteveT]

I took a few goes at it.  My need for speed needs be tempered by fear for my life.  This isn't over.

 

And try Flight Test 2 for a much harder version of Flight Test, since you did so well.

Edited by SteveT, 12 September 2015 - 06:12 PM.

[Masamune]

You'll have to upload it. I don't see it on your uploaded list yet.

 

That said I was terrible at Flight Test. Thank goodness for temporary invulnerability after getting hit and all the cape feathers.

[SteveT]

There must be some lag.  I'll double check it next time I play and send the code.

 

The invisibility frames are a plague that has been cured in the sequel.

 

EDIT: The code is C295-0000-0027-0056

Edited by SteveT, 12 September 2015 - 06:53 PM.

[Masamune]

I'll give it a go. God save me. (Also, were you able to hear the Falcon Punches when you killed enemies? I wasn't sure if custom sound effects carried over.)

 

Give this one a go. I'm pretty proud of this one, since it takes the concept of using an enemy to help you beat the stage: C690-0000-0027-C2DF

[SteveT]

Sadly, the Falcon Punch was replaced with a generic bird chirp.

 

I liked the Bow Wow one.  Good concept and it tripped me up a few times.  There were a couple times where I was stuck with no way to die.  That would normally be a bigger complaint except Mario Maker lets you restart in the pause menu.

 

I played your other courses as well, and I have never been so happy to call you a fiend.

[Masamune]

What parts did you get stuck on? I tried to fine tune it as much as possible to prevent that from happening, but I always know what I'm supposed to be doing.

 

I managed to take care of your second flying one. I think it may have even been easier. Or more likely, I beat it in a way you didn't intend. 

[SteveT]

There were two spots.  One was at the very beginning.  If you don't kill the first two Koopas before unleashing Bow Wow, you don't always have a good angle to shoot them.  But that one you can just learn, suicide, and try again.  The real getting stuck happened if you beat Bow Wow to one of the gate traps and fall in.  I'm not sure how you can prevent that.

 

Flight Test 2 probably was easier.  There's only one spot where you have to time your cape bounces, and once you get to the first Thowmp, the level is pretty painless. I'll have to see what I can do to make Flight Test 3 as brutal and unforgiving as possible.  

 

The one I'm currently tinkering with will have a donut blocks on rails theme.

[SteveT]

So one criticism I have already is how there are no triggered events, such as forcing you to kill an enemy to open a door or something.  It really limits your ability to make interesting boss fights.

 

Bowser's Gauntlet is my attempt to do just that.  Three Bowser fights, three different ways you have to beat him.

 

8EC1-0000-0031-E09C

 

 

By the way, it takes 20 hits with a shell to kill Bowser.  I modified that one to a Bowser Jr because it was kind of a boring section.  To make it beatable, I had to feed the player a ton of power-ups and remove stage hazards.  And then it was a pure endurance challenge and still not very fun.  Bowser Jr is a faster fight and that allowed me to add more hazards.  I think it was a good change overall, because this way the section is shorter but still just as difficult.  Some jerk will probably find a way to just run past Bowser anyway.  Jerks.

 

Sidenote: Flight Test 2 is definitely easier.  The clear percentage is like 3 points higher.

 

I'm a little worried about how much effort the player base is willing to put into courses.  They seem to bolt at any sign of adversity.  Maybe they're just paranoid about troll mechanics.  I, personally, try not to give up unless I know for sure I'm being trolled.

Edited by SteveT, 13 September 2015 - 05:12 PM.

[Masamune]

Yeah after playing 100 Man Mario on Expert Mode, you get a lot of artificial difficulty like four doors and three of them lead to a pit. But like you, I try to give every stage an honest go until it becomes obvious you're being trolled.

That said, your complaint about triggers is one I feel. It would make all the difference in the world if enemies could 'hold' P-Blocks until they die. That said, I likewise tried to tackle that limitation in my own "Castle of Ordeals" which is setup so you more or less need to deal with every enemy before you're able to proceed. In most cases you can still progress, but it will kill you if you do. But mostly it's just moving room by room to progress. Also I tried to solve the checkpoint issue by including an alternate route that takes you midway through the level. I tried to telegraph it so people know where it is, but I may just put a Miiverse message in the midway point room telling them where to look for the secret entrance. 

 

I put it all here: 78C5-0000-0033-4178

 

I tried your Bowser's Gauntlet though, but I'm not sure if it was the current version or one you previously uploaded. It was a good challenge, though I think I had to duck and run past Bowser to win towards the end. I know I skipped the second one, since the bombs made for a lot of chaos. 

 

Edit: I had to change the code because enemies from one section was showing up in another, so I had to move them further away from the action. 

Edited by Masamune, 13 September 2015 - 06:49 PM.

[SteveT]

Third Bowser was beatable by fireballs.  The pipe drops fire flowers so you don't run out.

 

It's becoming clear that my level design would be greatly improved if someone else lived in my house who plays Mario.

[Masamune]

I just replayed it - my memory was fuzzy. I actually like how you fight the giant Bowser in a kind of murder hole. It's chaotic, but not so impossible that it can't be done. That said, I definitely skipped Bowser Jr and regular Bowser. The first because I tried just throwing the buzzy beetles at him like intended, but there was too much fire coming my way to make that viable. My only suggestion is that there could have been more space between that fight and the other Bowsers, just so there's more freedom to be able to fight Junior the way that was intended. 

[SteveT]

Yeah, I guess you have to be dedicated to stick to the buzzy beetle strat.  That goes back to the lack of forced encounters.  I'm glad I downgraded him to Bowser Jr.  Nobody has time for 20 hits.  I don't know how I feel about decreasing the space.  I like the increase in difficulty from extra fire breath.  I guess it depends on how annoying I want the level to be.  You made Giant Bowser harder than he needed to be by jumping down.  You could have stayed high and rained fire upon him.

 

I really like the bomb the floor concept, so it makes me sad that you skipped that one.  I'll have to find a more elegant way of putting that in a future level.  I may have put too much fire in that section, too, and encouraged the player to run away.

I really liked the Cave of Ordeals.  That was a fun level with interesting encounters.  Did you expect the player to bring Yoshi through to the last part?  Wiggler was unreliable about going where I needed it to, so I resorted to other tactics.  I loved the Giant Goomba lock tripping a P-switch and the use of Yoshi to catch and return attacks.

[Masamune]

The bombs are very interesting to use, but I find myself shy away from them in a lot of my levels just because they have the tendency to really screw things up. In my Bow Wow level, I had to spent a half hour devising a system where I could have them show up and not kill the Chomp. It makes me wish we had a SMBUSA skin where we had item bombs that can be moved around and deposited. 

As for Junior, the only reason I could reliably slip by him was because I knew that fire flower was there - so I could soak up the damage and sneak past him. Take that away and I wouldn't have a choice but to play the Buzzy Beetle fight. You could compensate for the strategy by giving Mario a Buzzy Beetle hat so he can have an extra HP without giving him raccoon tail/fire flower that would change the strategy. 

 

As for mine... Yeah, it's not possible to beat Bowser without Yoshi. If you don't ride him into the final encounter, then you reallycan't beat Bowser (unless you're really, really good and use the fire flower). But there were several times I expected the player to have to abandon Yoshi for the sake of preserving the challenge of the next room. Returning attacks was kind of fun, though Bowser takes so many hits that it's a little tedious. I wish there was a way to give other enemies multiple hit points. The best I could come up with was using the wings to make the Magikoopas take an extra hit. (That was probably my favorite room, challenge wise.)

 

As for Wiggler, he'll go the way you want if you are on the edge of the cannon in the direction you want to be going. He'll 'follow' Mario if he thinks you're in front of him. It's not quite as reliable as the Chomp option, but it works. 

I think the most interesting part of this game is how certain versions of the game with their different mechanics offer differing ways to set things up. For instance I chose Super Mario World solely because Yoshi's tongue will go through objects, which is how you pull out the P-Block. The New SMB skin won't let you do that... but it has wall jumping instead. Whereas SMB3 has the easiest to control flying item. And then there's SMB1  which has, well, the mystery mushrooms.

[SteveT]

As for Junior, the only reason I could reliably slip by him was because I knew that fire flower was there - so I could soak up the damage and sneak past him. Take that away and I wouldn't have a choice but to play the Buzzy Beetle fight. You could compensate for the strategy by giving Mario a Buzzy Beetle hat so he can have an extra HP without giving him raccoon tail/fire flower that would change the strategy. 

 

Yeah, I toyed around with the beetle hat early on, but decided against it when I went to Bowser Jr.  "This is easy now,"  I said.  And then I made it much harder.  Calibrating my sense of difficulty is an ongoing effort.  When you're building these stages, you play them so much that you forgot that you mastered your intended playstyle, vs. someone seeing it for the first time.  You're also much more invested and willing to put the time into your own levels.

 

As for mine... Yeah, it's not possible to beat Bowser without Yoshi. If you don't ride him into the final encounter, then you reallycan't beat Bowser (unless you're really, really good and use the fire flower).

 

Ah, that's right.  I did notice that giant Bowser cannot be walked through with i-frames.  Something to remember for future designs.

[Masamune]

The dfficulty thing is so hard to judge. I got a comment on my Captain Falcon one about the ending with the Chain Chomp "this is broken, fix it." Mind you, that's not an easy segment, but it just takes a little timing and patience. I've fixed my version of it, but I'm reluctant to replace mine. (Someone did a funny Miiverse picture on it so I hate to lose it.) My other levels are basically the same... what I think of as doable is probably trollishly hard to others. On my autoscroll levels, I've got it down to a split second on when to jump and land on certain places, but that's just because I happen to know when and where to go. Would that I had someone to play test them with me at all times.

 

Bowser in a tight place is about as good as you can get to a forced encounter. That and putting any enemy into a clown copter.

[SteveT]

Another one to add to the list of version differences is that Dry Bones throw bones in World and Mario can duck.  Plus all the maneuverability options in NSMB.  

 

I wouldn't change that spot if it means deleting the old one. Not worth it.  You feed the player a mushroom, so they can take two hits and power through with i-frames.  Plus, that Miiverse comment is gold.

 

I was just working on my donuts-on-rails level and it's shaping up to be a doozy.  I still need to add coins and maybe tune the difficulty here and there, but it's close.

 

And to interrupt the SteveT and Masamune reunion special for a moment, I tracked down your courses, Goblin.  I hate you for making me learn to time trampoline jumps after all these years.

 

One last note, I am officially addicted to this game.  I just looked at my activity log and holy crap I have spent my entire weekend playing it.  It's one of those games where you don't even feel the time passing, and there's always one more thing you want to do.  I did not expect to be this engrossed with this game.

Edited by SteveT, 13 September 2015 - 10:37 PM.

[Masamune]

Seriously, the game is way too engrossing. Yesterday I was like, "okay I still have another ten minutes before I need to get ready to leave" and when I looked up, fifteen had passed just trying to setup one tiny thing. I really expected this to be a game I was only going to have a trifling interest in for awhile. But I'm all set, even with the limitations in options. It just poses a challenge to overcome. That said, I would throw large wads of money at Nintendo if they released DLC for content packs to expand on the game.

 

Things  I'd love to see:

-Traversable pipes not used for going to the sublevel.

-Keys for doors.

-More boss options or at the very least, the ability to set how many hits an enemy takes.

-Right now there's a background/platform block that you can set in an area and determine how big it is. I want a variation of it that is just a water segment you can place anywhere. I like water in a level, but I don't want to do entire water levels. 

-Letting enemies 'hold' items that they drop.

-Ice blocks that actually melt. I was so disappointed when I got the ice blocks and thought I had a new way to interact with the game by making fire flowers melt obstacles. Nope. 

-A desert tileset, complete with sinking sand. 

-Angry Sun.

 

I'm doing a Captain Falcon sequel now that I'm more experienced with making levels. ('Experienced' meaning two days). I'm making it a little tighter and a little less punishing for the instinct to just want to run, run, run. 

[Veteran]

This topic is probably the best advertising for the game. I'm undecided but now tempted massively. I remember back in the day getting Mario Paint and realising that I'm not very good when left with numerous tools and only my imagination.

 

I worry Mario Maker would just be a repeat. At least with Mario Paint I gained a mouse.

[SteveT]

I had the same concerns, Vet.  Making levels has come much more naturally to me than drawing pictures ever has.  I say take the plunge!

 

Masa, I felt your pain with the ice blocks.  I saw them and got all excited about a fire flower ice block course like the one in Mario 3 with the hidden hammer suit.  But noooo.

 

The addition that a lot of people have been emphatic about is the checkpoint.  I would also love to had checkpoints.  It would make it much easier to have a long, difficult course.

 

I re-uploaded Bowser's Gauntlet.  I made a few difficulty tweaks.  There is a fire flower at the beginning, and I removed the Dry Bones.  It's a lot easier to focus on the task at hand with more health and one less hazard.  The thwomp section has also been tweaked.  I forgot to comment on it before, but I am totally ok with people finding out about the fire flower and using a damage boost to get past Bowser Jr.  If you know about a shortcut, exploit it.  It becomes risk/reward at that point.

 

2135-0000-0039-DB25

 

 

I also added the donut block one.  This one is probably also too hard, but I added a few come-back mechanisms that should mitigate the demanding platforming.

 

The Floor Is Lava:

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I think the next level I want to focus on is a gentle stage that feels like it could show up in World 1 or 2.  That way, I can take a break from making it hard to beat and just give people an enjoyable romp.  Plus, I could use the stars.  I tried to do that with my Airship level, but that one hasn't gotten much love.

[Masamune]

I replayed Bowser's Gauntlet again. It works a lot better and I took my time to beat each boss in turn. Bowser Junior was still a little annoying if you don't take him out quickly due to all of the other Bowsers fire finally reaching you. The second Bowser seemed the work better, but only if I waited long enough for the bob ombs to make the perfect opening to fight him. I'm not sure if I killed him with bombs or if he just fell into the gap I made with them. Either way the only thing I can say is that grabbing the Yoshi is a hindrance since he just eats the bombs. I wonder if New SMB Yoshi does that? If he doesn't, then that might be the better style for it. Otherwise the last Bowser fight works perfectly fine. 

 

The Floor is Lava one was pretty hard to be sure. I was relieved you provided an alternate route with a Raccoon leaf because I was struggling otherwise. That said, it was pretty cruel to taunt us with a way to jump over the wall and go flying into the lava. The merciful thing would have been to leave a single block with a door out there that would dump you back at the beginning as punishment. 

 

In the meantime, I've got two more to share. 

 

Show me your moves
902C-0000-003A-A028

 

I revisited the Captain Falcon stage, though I use the lessons I learned with the first one to make it faster. It's got a one hundred second timer, but this time the aim isn't really to be cautious about your speed, but to instead be able to (mostly) blaze through it completely. I have a few breaks in there that slow down the player, but aren't necessarily going to kill them. It's not one I'd label hard, but it's fairly challenging to land all the jumps and moves perfectly if you want to get to the ending in time. But my proudest part of the level is just the background. I put a lot of attention to the details since because it's supposed to be an F-Zero stage, I didn't want things just randomly floating. It feels a bit more like an actual race track that way.

 

That time I ate the wrong shroom

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This one I made as a joke really so I could play with the whole dizzy effect you get from the sound effects. My vision of it was "Mario eats a bad shroom, turns into a goomba, and goes on a murderous rampage against his brethren." It's super easy, so naturally it's my most popular level. 

 

I think next I want to do a proper airship level. I had one from before, but that was just playing around with the options. I want to do a properly difficult but well balanced one this time. 

[SteveT]

I replayed Bowser's Gauntlet again. It works a lot better and I took my time to beat each boss in turn. Bowser Junior was still a little annoying if you don't take him out quickly due to all of the other Bowsers fire finally reaching you. The second Bowser seemed the work better, but only if I waited long enough for the bob ombs to make the perfect opening to fight him. I'm not sure if I killed him with bombs or if he just fell into the gap I made with them. Either way the only thing I can say is that grabbing the Yoshi is a hindrance since he just eats the bombs. I wonder if New SMB Yoshi does that? If he doesn't, then that might be the better style for it. Otherwise the last Bowser fight works perfectly fine. 

 

That's a really good point about Yoshi.  I found that he's kind of useful in that his stomp kicks the Bob-bombs in a desirable direction.  I guess the second one is the weak link.  Bob-bombs are a tricky mechanic to deal with in the first place.  My intent was to kill him via making a gap in the floor, so if you did it that way, good on you!  It just goes to show that one man can't predict player behavior.

 

For the third Bowser, I really need a better understanding of how item pipes work.  It can be a real pain to get a Fire Flower drop.  I'm curious, did you think to take advantage of the donut blocks to clear the second floor of Dry Bones and get them off your back?

 

 

 

The Floor is Lava one was pretty hard to be sure. I was relieved you provided an alternate route with a Raccoon leaf because I was struggling otherwise. That said, it was pretty cruel to taunt us with a way to jump over the wall and go flying into the lava. The merciful thing would have been to leave a single block with a door out there that would dump you back at the beginning as punishment. 

 

Oh no, that was unintentional.  I'll have to take a quick look at that and maybe re-upload.  Did you find all the secret helpers?  In addition to the leaf (which I am not convinced is worth the effort to grab, but I wanted to give people the choice), there are two emergency vines.  How did the Bowser fight work for you?  It was uncertain about whether it's too hard/easy.  I didn't want it to be super hard because of how much of a pain it was to get there in the first place.

 

I played the Captain Falcon one, and it's a great themed level.  I haven't beaten it yet, but I already like it more than the first.  The shroom one was pretty funny.

 

I added a new one.  This was my attempt at making something that could have shown in up in a real game.  Pretty easy and there are a few alternate routes and secrets.  I'm counting on it to be my money-maker, but I also think it's a pretty fun breather level.  

 

Secret Goomba

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Edit: I put up a new version of The Floor Is Lava.  32CB-0000-003A-DAD6.  I think you'll really enjoy how I addressed your concern.  It made the Bullet Bill section a bit easier and rewards any player crazy enough to try flying over a wall and skilled enough to get the leaf back to the landing pad.

Edited by SteveT, 14 September 2015 - 10:27 PM.

[Masamune]

I hear you on item spawning with pipes. The reason it doesn't work well is because it operates on the same mechanics as piranha plants. If you're on top of/underneath it or right beside it, then it won't spawn. It also won't spawn more than one item at a time. That's why when I can help it, I prefer to just use a bullet bill loaded with items as my powerup dispensers instead. I did use the donuts to ditch the Dry Bones though. You can also eat them with Yoshi and use their bones as a projectile attack, but it was too chaotic to really pull that off well. 

 

I wasn't able to get the leaf back to the landing pad. I knew it was feasible because I did it a few times without the raccoon tail, but I eventually decided it was harder than actually just beating the level normally.  I did run into one of the beanstalks, but the donut block sank into the lava just as I realized what was happening. As for the Bowser fight it was an interesting compromise on the forced encounters. Climbing up the donuts is actually harder than it seems because of Bowser's stomp attack. I was able to accomplish it on my first go, but it wasn't easy.  Given the way this game works, you're more likely to get people to complete your level if they don't feel they're being suddenly punished at the end, so it's better if victory seems reasonable. 

 

Secret Goomba Shrine is actually really nice because it feels very much like an actual Mario level. There's plenty of alternate routes and it actually rewards you for just actually flying - which you don't actually see much in Mario Maker, since so many levels are designed so specifically where people don't want flying to 'break' the level. It was nice to just find some free stuff up in the air to grab. 

Edited by Masamune, 15 September 2015 - 06:15 AM.

[SteveT]

I was able to accomplish it on my first go, but it wasn't easy

 

That's what I was hoping for.  I put the fire snakes in to slow the player down and make Bowser relevant to the section, but I didn't want cheap deaths making the player restart.  The stomp attack does stun you long enough for the donut to drop, and I think it adds to the tension, but you should be able to take a hit at that point.

 

I still need to try the level in NSMB style.  I agree that it would be interesting to see what Yoshi does with the bombs, but I worry that the aerial stall will cause problems.  As it stands, he's really just there as a renewable hit point and a reward for exploring.  I like the cannon idea.  Much more reliable.  I'll stick to that instead of pipes in the future in this kind of situation.  The current design lets you fly over the wall and enter a door that drops you into the Bowser arena.  I figure if you can pull that off, you deserve to skip half the level.

 

Secret Goomba Shrine is actually really nice because it feels very much like an actual Mario level. 

 

Thanks.  It sounds like Secret Goomba did exactly what I want it to do.  I may have made it a little too easy, because it's sitting at 100% completion, but the goal was a pleasant level that rewarded exploration, so maybe that's not a problem.  I want to make more like it and let people have a little fun instead of solely making grueling courses like The Floor is Lava and Bowser's Gauntlet.  I like to think those are more rewarding to beat than the many troll levels, but I suspect that players won't be able to tell the difference.

 

Flight Test 2 is currently my most popular, got a nice comment, and has a higher completion rate than Flight Test.  I'm glad people are enjoying that because I always felt like Mario World dropped the ball with flying.  There are a few spots where you can fly around in peace and grab coins, but the game never tested your abilities to use it.  I'm brainstorming for a Flight Test 3, probably with the tail.  

[SteveT]

I did some testing.  Bowser's Gauntlet is worse with the NSMB style.  Yoshi doesn't change, the controls are a little more slippery, and giant Bowser breaks free of his cage.  

 

The Floor Is Lava gets a lot easier that way, though.  And so it cannot be changed.