

Mario Maker: Create Your Own Super Mario Levels - stevekinney
http://e3.nintendo.com/games/wiiu/mario-maker/

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jtreminio
I bought a Wii U because I have a then-6 year old son and I wanted him to
enjoy playing games with me that didn't involve shooting other people full of
holes.

My fondest memories of my childhood aren't playing Contra or Street Fighter,
but games like Chip N' Dale and Duck Tales.

The Wii U's game category has been much slower than others, but I feel like
every single game Nintendo proper releases is pure gold, and there's plenty of
3rd-party games that have seen hundreds of hours of family gameplay (Rayman
Legends).

Anyways, I hope this release brings about a new generation of Really Hard
Mario levels!

~~~
MBCook
That's what a lot of the commentary I've heard about Splatoon has focused on.

Nintendo took a really popular (and good) genre, the team based shooter, and
made it perfectly family friendly. Easy to understand, lots of fun, no
exploding heads, no dismemberments, nothing objectionable.

~~~
Pxtl
It's been tried before, but not with the talent of Nintendo behind it. I
remember playing the Nerf-branded UT game with my nephew many years ago, for
example.

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taurath
So much potential in this - a few years ago myself and a bunch of friends were
obsessed with ROM hacks for Super Mario World for the SNES; some of them were
just really well-designed levels, and some of them were absolute hell,
basically requiring the use of an emulator to save states and rewind. It
created a completely different feel of game, and the simple and consistent
physics of a Mario game was the perfect limitation for weird and strange
things to happen.

Here's a video of one of one of the difficult levels:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teAqRZX4hbY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teAqRZX4hbY)

~~~
scott_s
I've never see Kaizo Mario World before. That's amazingly clever. It's easy to
just, say, spam a screenful of koopas at you to make something hard. These
levels, though are hard because they involve a complex interaction of Mario
skills, with zero tolerance for getting it wrong. If you've played enough
Mario, some of the sections are actually funny in the same way that comics
are: I immediately see how difficult the task is, why, and the combination of
both almost makes me laugh.

I actually threw up my hands when I saw not only that the player had to throw
a baby Yoshi up in the air to eat an enemy, but that the designer of the level
expected this! Same when I realized that the the length of an area was tuned
so that it was juuuuuust smaller than the amount of time Yoshi held a shell in
his mouth before swallowing.

~~~
minimaxir
Most SMW ROM hacks are built with the assumption that the user will use save
states, which dramatically offsets the execution difficulty.

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wcfields
Are there any that are different take on SMW that aren't crazy difficult?
Like, what are the best SMW ROM hacks that are the most well thought-out.

Ditto for Zelda, those two are my favorite games but I can only play the same
game so much.

~~~
scott_s
The recent Link Between Worlds for the 3DS is a direct sequel to the SNES Link
to the Past, and in many ways, it's like a remix. I was skeptical, as I also
adore LttP, but I really enjoyed the new one for the 3DS.

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Fuzzwah
This could be enough to push me over the edge and buy a Wii U. It is very cool
that Nintendo have embraced user made content, after being so against it for
what seems like forever.

edit: a couple of replies made me realize that I was off the mark slightly
with my comment. I should have focused on how their attempts to support user
made content have seemed to run into their legal department's over the top
desire to "defend" their character IP.

~~~
Lambdanaut
I'm not disagreeing that they are against user made content per se, but there
are plenty of examples where they've embraced user content, ever since
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Paint](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Paint)

and even to the more recent Wario-Ware games where you can make your own mini-
games.

~~~
Scuds
even looking at the screnshots, they seem to have borrowed heavily from the
Mario Paint interface, stream of icons on the top.

No idea why they used a dog icon in the corner. IIRC that was the undo button
in Mario Paint. [http://e3.nintendo.com/_ui/images/games/wiiu/mario-
maker/scr...](http://e3.nintendo.com/_ui/images/games/wiiu/mario-
maker/screenshot7.jpg) Maybe it's a pun in Japanese?

~~~
Excavator
And the fly swatting and clapping hands that are also directly ripped out of
Mario Paint.

I'm a bit disappointed that they apparently didn't put in the music editor.

> No idea why they used a dog icon in the corner.

Perhaps him sneezing is related somehow? "Blowing away changes"…

Edit: Or the similarity between Inu (Dog) and Undo?

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thisisdallas
For those who are thinking about picking up a Wii U, Nintendo is selling
refurbished consoles for $200. For all the reports I have read, they are
basically brand new systems (in appearance).

[https://store.nintendo.com/ng3/us/po/browse/productDetailCol...](https://store.nintendo.com/ng3/us/po/browse/productDetailColorSizePicker.jsp?categoryNav=true&navAction=jump&navCount=0&atg.multisite.remap=false&productId=prod150200&categoryId=cat140077)

~~~
timdorr
I just got mine from UPS earlier today. I can confirm that it's
indistinguishable from a new console. It may even be brand new. They are
likely getting returned inventory from retailers since it hasn't been selling
as well as hoped.

It also comes with a 3 year warranty and a free copy of Nintendo Land. If you
get Mario Kart 8 before the end of July, you can get a free game with it. In
total, it's about $250 for a console still early in its cycle and 3 good
games. It's a great deal.

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Scuds
This is a hardly a new idea but nice to see it applied to a famous franchise
like Mario.

Little Big Planet is 2D platformer released in 2008 whose maps were designed
built in house through their own level editor. They provided a (Stephen Fry
narrated, dear lord) interactive tutorial and a complete system to share
levels and play with your friends.

There _were_ some performance issues with some of the more complicated levels
and the PS3's limited RAM maintaining a big ole physics engine.

But since this is just Mario, level complexity shouldn't be a problem. Still,
I don't know if Mario provides enough variety to remain interesting for years.

THEN AGAIN - there is a kid born every day who's never played a Mario game
before, maybe things should stay simple.

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Yen
I'm kind of interested in the last screenshot
([http://e3.nintendo.com/_ui/images/games/wiiu/mario-
maker/scr...](http://e3.nintendo.com/_ui/images/games/wiiu/mario-
maker/screenshot7.jpg)).

Is that just post production, or do they actually allow the editor to define a
set of moves and abstract over time, a la Brett Victor?

~~~
flycaliguy
My guess is that when you pause the action and enter the edit screen, you are
able to view a trail of your previous positions. I think that button in the
bottom left toggles it.

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AlexMax
There has been an unofficial tool for editing Super Mario World levels
available for many years now.

[http://www.smwiki.net/wiki/Lunar_Magic](http://www.smwiki.net/wiki/Lunar_Magic)

I wonder how Mario Maker will compare in functionality and ease of use.

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winslow
Darn, it's only available for WiiU. I feel like most hardcore level makers
would work from PC. Obviously, that's not really their target but would have
been cool to have it on PC.

~~~
Scuds
They'd have to support it on the PC as well. I suppose it's more of an attack
surface.

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orasis
If you have an iPad, PixelPress Floors is a great option -
[http://projectpixelpress.com/floors/](http://projectpixelpress.com/floors/)

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flycaliguy
I'd love for them to toss in a music maker like Gameboy Camera's Trippy H or
Mario Paint Composer. To create original compositions using Nintendo's sound
palette would really complete the experience.

Lovers of the series and fans of the genre can agree that a side scroller's
music makes the whole game's flow fit together. An avant garde remix of
Mario's theme would be the perfect accompaniment to some of the experimental
levels people will create.

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emehrkay
I wonder if you can put a spring thing that allows you to jump over the pole.
This is kinda amazing, you can even update the graphics. I'm guessing 30
dollars and a download

~~~
function_seven
I'm guessing no. I don't remember how,* but I managed to jump higher than the
level pole once, but hit an invisible wall and slid down it anyway.

*Game Genie? Emulated ROM?

~~~
mratzloff
On which one? As a kid I was able to jump over the flag in World 3-3 with just
the right timing ([http://ian-
albert.com/games/super_mario_bros_maps/mario-3-3....](http://ian-
albert.com/games/super_mario_bros_maps/mario-3-3.gif)). The castle wall simply
continued on forever, and I ran until time ended, hoping there would be a
secret of some kind at the end.

The bounding box for the flag top is pretty tall, so I had to get a lot of air
in order to clear it.

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Abraln
Hopefully they add additional options (yoshi, invisible blocks, fire flowers,
etc.) otherwise I will probably pass. It does seem like an early build though,
so that's a good sign that they will.

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fnbaptiste
I read about this awhile ago and I didn't think it sounded all that fun. But
looking at the pictures, it actually looks like it could be really cool. I'm
definitely going to get this.

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bruceb
Sonic had debug mode 20 years ago:
[http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Debug_Mode](http://sonic.wikia.com/wiki/Debug_Mode)

~~~
Mahn
That wasn't quite like building your own levels though.

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Yuioup
Okay but how long will it take before you get bored with this? Somehow I can't
imagine this to hold anybody's attention for longer than 5 minutes.

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carlosinho
That's really cool. I guess we'll see quite a few messed up levels created
with this. (I mean messed up in a good way.)

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batmansbelt
I had a code for my game genie that enabled this functionality. It was fun
hacking away at Mario 3.

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zenciadam
Wanted something like this when I was 8.

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mrcactu5
wow - after all these years... however my guess this is not open source?

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mrcactu5
who the fuck downvoted? what the fuck is wrong with you guys!! prick fuckers
get a life

