Running in a Winter Wonderland

One of my more difficult ones, apparently, inspired by NSMBU's "Run for It!" and created for the Chopped Challenge Week 4. It's a speedrun level, obviously, in that you've gotta keep up to keep the P-Switches active to keep alive.

And as of this writing its clear-rate is just under 1%. I might have made this one harder than I meant to.

Enjoy, I suppose?

84L-M7D-5TG

Koopa Mines - 1 and Carnival

Hey all,

I finally got me a switch and some Mario Maker and I'm getting back into the swing of things.

Here are my first two attempts in MM2, both pretty easy, aiming for fun and exploration over anything else.

Koopa Mines - 1: LT6-93K-SSG

Carnival: 8JG-0SS-51H

Enjoy!

SMM2

   Hello all, I've been meaning to post my courses here but haven't had as much free time to play or make lately as I'd like. If I'm making any mistakes in this post, I'll be happy to correct them.

   I've only got 6 uploaded so far, but my first few were obviously a bit rough. I had some neat ideas in them, but overall they were a bit too hard. In one case there were red coin puzzles, which seem very unpopular for good reason. These three are my most successful levels so far:

"That belong in a museum!" 12G-16K-QHF
   It's a short level, Indiana Jones themed. You infiltrate the temple/cave and retrieve the treasure, which sets off a chasing boulder and various other traps throughout.

"Shoeflyin' don't bother me." N7J-H06-N8G
   I've always loved the Goomba Shoe from SMB3. It was such a goofy thing, seeing a little Goomba hopping around in a weird green boot with little grubby cartoon hands. This game has a version of the shoe that gets a little hover jump, almost like a Yoshi's story type flutter. I wanted to make a level that could be beaten quickly, had no deadly enemies or bottomless pits. Basically I wanted a level where you couldn't die, got to jump n' fly, and even somebody who never uses the run button can beat it. 40% completion rate is certainly markedly higher than my other levels and I'm not sure how I could really even make it safer than it already is.

"Lucid Nightmare" - 7GX-GBM-SHG
  The gimmick is the both level and sublevel are the same, but one is low gravity and the other is normal. Certain blocks and enemies change depending on which part you're in. This is actually a de-puzzled version of another map I made earlier, puzzles seem to really turn away a lot of players but I really liked the low/normal gravity dichotomy.

SMM2 levels: Hammer Bros., long jumps & an apparently empty level

I revisited ideas I had for Mario Maker 1 levels in this set of courses:

Fortress of the Hammer Legion: R2L-D3Q-WLF

What's everyone's least favorite enemy from the original SMB? Yep, it's the Hammer Bros. Because no one asked for it, here's a level with a bunch of them. Hammer Bros in Mario Maker 2 are easier than they were in the original Super Mario Bros. in that they only throw up to two hammers in sequence, but you still must be careful with them. There are helpful powerups hidden throughout the course; I put a coin over the ? Blocks with powerups in them. If you find the Star, start running and you might be able to nearly finish the level before it runs out!

Training For Plumber Athletes X: C6R-B05-WVG

A remake of one of my favorite Mario Maker 1 courses, this is much easier than it looks. Be ready to run fast and jump far!

Check Over The Plants: 7XC-VVH-NFF

There's a locked door and Key Coins up out of reach. How to get to them? There's got to be invisible blocks somewhere, but where? Where indeed, hmm... (points to the course title)

By the way, the easiest way I've currently found to get screenshots (such as these) off of Switch, without the hassle of taking out the Micro SD card, is to post them to a special-purpose (or just little-used) Facebook or Twitter account. Then you can save them to your computer's hard drive, and from there post them to Blogger.

SMM2 level: Cliffside Cruise

Code: W21-LBN-4NG

There's a way to get screenshots off a Switch to include, but haven't gotten around to figuring out how to get them into Blogger yet. (The easy way to do it is tweet them with the built-in tool then link to that.)

This course is something of a sequel to the most popular SMM1 course I made, Be Careful on the Cliffs. Like it, it's mostly a fun course, not too challenging but salted a bit with enemies. It also uses my favorite graphical element, the SMB1 semisolid platform that looks like ground but "darkened," so it presents like it's inside a cave. I hope you like it! I've already got ideas for the next course....

SMM2 Level: Rolling Hills

Getting back into the swing with the new system, I made a level using a lot of slopes! It's not too exciting, I understand, but I'm still getting used to the new tools. The code is 05H-PNV-M1H

Super Mario Maker 2!

Nintendo has announced Super Mario Maker 2 for Switch, and done a whole Nintendo Direct on it unveiling a ton of new features! It looks like they've gone well beyond the call of duty for this one. There's no word if they'll update the excellent bookmark site for it, or what the fate of old levels will be. I hope they'll find a way to import levels from the first Mario Maker. The biggest thing that held back the first game was the Wii U's abysmal adoption rate; the Switch has already surpassed that and is pretty popular, so hopefully it'll end up meaning more plays and ratings for everyone!

This blog will continue to be available for Metafilter members to post their levels for the new game, although if there's no bookmark site, we might not be able to post screenshots so easily. It looks like they're still using a code system to trade levels, but they're down to just nine letters, from 16 in the original.

Thanks if you're still following us, and happy building!

Upcoming update!

Hi ho!  Is anyone still reading this?

Another Super Mario Maker content update is on the way, and it turns out it has quite a number of new features!  Coming March 9th:

• A P-Switch can be shaken to turn it into a Key!
• Coins can be shaken to turn them into Pink Coins!  Collect all the Pink Coins in a course (up to 5) to get a Key!
• Doors can be shaken twice, the first time to make P-Switch doors (introduce last update), the second time to make Locked Doors that require a Key to open!
• Keys are not carried like other items, but automatically follow Mario (probably so they can still be useful in Super Mario Bros. mode).  Up to 8 can be following Mario at a time.
• Particularly interestingly, a Key can be given to an enemy and will be left behind when the enemy is defeated, meaning people can now create forced boss fights!
• In other news, Thwomps can be shaken to create the gigantic skewers seen in some Super Mario World courses.
• An addition difficulty is being added to 100 Mario Challenge: Super Expert, with a few special costumes that can be unlocked for clearing it!  You only have to clear six courses (as opposed to eight for Easy and sixteen for Normal and Expert), but you can expect them to be particularly insane.  Now that there's a specific home for Super Expert courses, maybe Expert mode's difficulty will decrease a bit?
• The game will let you open one of your courses in a special viewing mode that shows you where each player died with more precision.
• Finally, the Bookmark site will start tracking how many world records and clears each player has.

Pretty neat!  Unfortunately I've stalled out at the moment in creating courses -- I'm up to my maximum of 40 and am still 23 stars shy of the next unlock point.  I should probably delete some of my under-performers....

Recent JHarris courses

As promised/threatened a couple of weeks ago, here are some of my more recent courses!


Crossing the Impossible Gap (14.70% Normal -- about 7 lives to finish it, on average):
The area pictured above has six ways to cross it, by my reckoning, scattered throughout the course.  How many can you find?



The Embiggening (11.69% Expert -- about 8-and-a-half lives)
A short-but-sweet course centered around Mario's rarest powerup (because it needs an Amiibo to place it), the Big Mushroom, which is an interesting item in a number of ways.



Nimble Footwork or Brute Force (9.68% Unrated -- about 10 lives):
There are two routes through this course, intertwined with each other.  If you just run through it you'll have a hard time, but there's an easier way....



World μ-◆ (22.48% Normal -- about 4-and-a-half lives):
Made to look and play like a classic Mario level.  You pronounce the title "World Mu-Diamond."



Atop the Trees and Mountains (16.00% Normal -- 6-and-a-quarter lives):
More of a riddle than a course.  It's not hard at all once you figure out the trick, so I will refrain from giving hints here....



Training for Plumber Athletes (9.77% Expert -- about 10 lives):
Finally, my favorite course of those pictured.  It looks much harder than it is.  It feels great to get a good dash going and taking it at full sprint!

Mario Maker popularity tracker spreadsheet

Hey all!  I've got lots of new levels to post but have been busy getting a book wrangled and edited together.  So until I get around to posting them, here's something else I made, an Excel spreadsheet to track how well your Mario Maker levels are doing!

Here it is. (Dropbox link)

To use it, first you go to this site (not mine) and enter your NNID.  That's the username of your WiiU Nintendo Network account, not the name of your user Mii.  The script there will go to your public Mario Maker Bookmark profile and download the stats for each of your courses, which you can then copy out of its table and paste into the spreadsheet at position A4 (both the site's URL and the right place to paste are noted for you in the spreadsheet).  If you don't have/want Microsoft Office you can load the sheet into LibreOffice as well, although the functionality that counts how many levels you have at each difficulty doesn't seem to work in it for some reason.

Once it's there, you can sort by various criteria by clicking the drop-down arrows at the top of each column.  It's a good way to find out which of your courses have struck a chord with players, as well as showing which have gotten the most plays and other derived data.  So try it, why doncha?

Vines and Pyramids

Two new levels since last I checked in!

The Secret of the Pyramid
7609-0000-0179-3E42

I kind of went crazy and threw in everything I could find into this Mario 3-style level--including the kitchen sink, as you'll see. It didn't occur to me until after posting that there's a way to break it so you can neither get into the pyramid pipe nor back to redo it, but I think it should be fine.

A Vine Mess You've Gotten Into!
BBB1-0000-018D-3695

Obviously I wanted to call this Well Here's Another Vine Mess You've Gotten Me Into, but the title character limit wouldn't allow it. I really just wanted to make a level involving as many vines as possible, and something about the handling of Mario World made that style feel right. There's a correct way to go through it, and there's a couple tricky ways, but you got us into this mess, Laurel, so you get us out of it.

House Call

The sprinkler system isn't working, so Mario must travel down the pipes and fix it. Can he make the garden grow?

Super-silly premise aside, in reality this is a scrolling level with a criss-crossing path and challenging, varied quick-thinking platforming throughout.  Eager for everybody's thoughts, as I'll probably go back and edit this one with critique, and work on the aesthetics again, so that I can publish a more polished version later.

https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/courses/4933-0000-0183-FFF0

Super Mario Maker 1.30

Hey everyone!  Released today was Super Mario Maker 1.30.  This is the version that gives us the Super Mario Maker Bookmark site, which is both an easier way to search for interesting courses and a better way to play them!

If you sign into the site with your Nintendo Network ID (NNID), you can choose to "bookmark" a course.  The next time you load the game up on your Wii U, there will be a list of bookmarked courses you can choose and play immediately from!  And I hear, if you're using the Wii U's Internet Browser, you can even jump to the course immediately from the listings!

Furthermore, and of special interest to us, it is possible to more directly link to one of your courses, for bookmarking or immediate play!  The URL of your stage on the internet takes the form:

https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/courses/[course ID here]

So, my recent course Beneath The Floating Islands has the URL:

https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/courses/67AA-0000-011D-B357

Its worth having a look at the site even if you're not playing immediately, as a maker can now "tag" his course with one of a number of descriptors: Automatic, Music, Puzzle, Gimmick, Dash, Remix, Thumbnail, Costume, Yoshi, Theme or Speedrun.  Apparently you can only apply one tag to each of your courses, and they have to be one of those, which kind of sucks, but Nintendo seems to be learning how to do this better and so maybe it'll improve in the future?

Additionally, courses now list both the first player to finish it (excluding courses uploaded before the update) and the world record completion time for finishing it.

And there are also three new course elements!  Shaking a Grinder (sawblade) creates a pinball-like bumper, shaking a door turns it into a P-Switch Door that can only be used while a switch is in effect (it appears as a dotted line otherwise), and the Koopa Clown Car can now be shaken to make it into a more powerful armed version.

The Lost Level Exit

The Lost Level Exit
BCDD-0000-010E-BE47

With the Wii U offline for the past month or so due to a move, my Mario making has been getting a little rusty. But playing some old Mario games in the meantime, I was struck by inspiration. This one homages/shamelessly swipes the gimmick from one of the later Lost Levels stages. I suspect my tolerances may have been thrown off by playing a lot of Expert Mode in Mario Maker, but going back to Lost Levels, they don't seem nearly as unfairly difficult as I remember.

But anyway, now that I'm back online, I'm pretty delighted to see everyone has made a lot of stages--I'm looking forward to playing through the backlog!

Kooperhorn 2

Building off of the ideas I introduced in Kooperhorn 1. While this one isn't as elegant as that one (in my opinion) the puzzle-solving is hopefully more rewarding, and the three-act-structure still in place.

Course ID: A276-0000-00F2-13B9
Difficulty: It's not trying to kill you but it might well could by accident.

Parabeetles, Parakoopas and P-Switches

I have now uploaded 29 levels, just one shy of my current upload limit.  My star count is just 25 away from the next medal though so I'll probably just slow down a bit and let stars accumulate for now.  In the meantime, allow me to introduce my latest three courses:

Acro-entomophobia
883D-0000-00E4-0C0D

A good pick for the hardest level in Super Mario Bros. 3 would be 5-6, or "that damn Parabeetle level."  It's the only level in Mario 3 to use that enemy.  Why they decided it had to be in Mario Maker on the basis of one use I'm not sure, but it's certainly interesting.

Parabeetles don't "stomp" when jumped on, but instead bear Mario's weight and carry him along.  More than that, the creature takes that as a signal to start flapping harder, and begins to soar up into the sky, whether you want it to or not.

This course is my homage to that level.  Naturally it has to use the Mario 3 game rules, even though I usually stick with Super Mario Bros style unless something about the level's gimmick demands otherwise.  I offer the following advice, which will make this course much easier: if you jump in place on a Parabeetle regularly, you can not only prevent it from ascending, but even cause it to slightly decrease in height.  With that knowledge, you may have a chance.


The Opposite Of Bird
89D8-0000-00E5-636A

I have a soft spot for Green Parakoopas.  Although they have wings, they just can't quite get the hang of that flying thing, and are stuck with great flapping bounces along the ground.  Unchained Chomps (seen previously in Time For Walkies) work similarly, but faster, not bouncing as high, and ordinarily invulnerable.  All of these things make Green Parakoopas more interesting, plus when you stomp one twice it leaves a shell, which of course has its own implications.

There are actually no explicitly placed Parakoopas in this level, though.  All the enemies are delivered via Lakitus floating high up off the screen.  As the level continues, more Lakitus show up, and eventually the turtle rain becomes a torrent.  You can still make it though though, by collecting powerups and making use of what shelter you can find.  It's kind of like No Shelter From The Goomba Rain in that regard, but much more random.  The presence of a mid-level checkpoint makes this course much easier.  Not only does it let you pick up from halfway through if you lose a life, but the earlier Lakitus won't be throwing turtles at you, so the green flapping hailstorm will be less severe in that case.

One more note that might help you out: Costume Mario cannot wear a shell helmet.

Chaos Theory: P-Switches
8C7F-0000-00E6-D605

Ah, I finally returned to the Chaos Theory concept.  In fact, a lot of my levels make use of chaos in one way or another.  That's chaos in the mathematical sense, where small differences in state can have great effects on the world.  Here, those differences in state are those of P-Switches.

Many levels put P-Switches someplace where you have to work to get them, and then they change the world in some way that makes it possible to proceed.  Not this one, no sir.  P-Switches are placed often and in easy reach, but you don't have to hit any of them.  But neither is this a course where you're trying, necessarily, to avoid them.

What P-Switches do here is change things up.  Hitting a P-Switch will manipulate the world so that some challenges disappear, but others reveal themselves.  The course is not any harder, generally, one way or another, but it is different, and in a variety of ways.  Not all of these changes are immediately obvious, either.  In other words, depending on whether you have switches active at different times, you'll face different challenges.  I can say, however, that the moment when the P-Switch effect begins or ends is a little more dangerous, so be careful when a switch is about to expire.

Another interesting thing about this level is it has a special hidden route for people who are lucky enough to find an early Weird Mushroom.  Although I think it might be possible for the route to be reached without one.  See if you can reach it!

Breaking levels

I seriously LOVE moments like this.

(I suspect in this case, Brett may have jumped on a sideways spiny. Mario mechanics are much more complex than they initially seem!)

MeFi Mario Maker RSS Feed

Using state-of-the-art decade old technology, we now have RSS and Atom feeds in the sidebar!  People still use RSS these days don't they?  Well I know I do.  Now you can keep up with all the horrifying levels we make slightly more easily.

Man, RSS in 2015.  We are hopelessly behind the social media times.  It's almost like we have a BLOG or somthin.  Why don't we post these things on My TweetSpaceBookR like all the hip twelve-year-olds are doing?

Time For Walkies

Time For Walkies
187A-0000-00E0-948B

The starring enemies in this course are unchained Chain Chomps.  I discovered something interesting about them.  Once they emerge into a course, their motions are not generally affected by Mario's position -- unless he collides with one that is, enemies will change direction in order to bite you.  But mostly they just happily bounce along not caring about you at all!  They will bounce off of other Chomps though.

This level sends them through predetermined pathways dictated by blocks in their way.  They don't go through any seriously convoluted routes, but they keep respawning from pipes.  It's best to leap over them as they overtake you, then continue on.

One thing I'm particularly proud of here is the wide array of ways you can tackle this course.  There are progressive powerups that help you along the primary route.  There is a secret sky route you can use if you happen to find a Weird Mushroom (there's one in a hidden block at the start), that has lots of long, long jumps, some of which can only be made with Weird Mushroom assistance, but of course if you fall out you still might be able to land somewhere in the normal course and finish it that way.  There's both a Star and a Shoe Goomba (shoes can stomp Chomps) in hidden blocks shortly after the main checkpoint, and there's a P-Switch that makes the last part easier if you're fast enough.  There's also a pipe midway through that leads through a short underground section that poses its own challenge, but if you take it you'll have to bypass both the Star and the P-Switch.

I don't have a very good handle on how difficult most people will find this course.  I think it's relatively easy, but I made it a bit easier right before uploading to remove some one-block landing spots right at the start that I find no problem, but I've come to realize might be troublesome for ordinary players.  Chomps are intended to be the main problem here anyway.  I predict it will end up with about a 8-9% clear rate.

Inside The Mighty Goomba Machine

Inside The Mighty Goomba Machine
7982-0000-00DB-D73F

Welcome to the Mushroom Kingdom's famous Goomba Machine.  We aren't sure if it's designed, made, operated or powered by Goombas, or if it makes them either as part of its designed function or as a byproduct.  One must still admit that it is majestic to behold. 

Do not worry about the guard dogs outside, they have no way to get to us.  But please stay with the tour group, as the inner workings of the machine are still dangerous and we wouldn't want a repeat of last week's unfortunate accident....

 ----------

No, I have not given up on making Mario levels, my standards have just gotten to the point where I'm getting pickier about what I choose to upload.  You could think of this as a reprise of No Shelter From The Goomba Rain, but it's much more cramped and less random.  I'd actually like for it to be more random, but it is difficult to introduce chaos into Mario's systems.  (One of the few good ways I've discovered is via Lakitu, but of course they have to be used carefully lest you hand the player a key to making most of your level optional.)

Hitting the blocks that enemies are standing on to take them out is an essential part of this level, even more essential than in Goomba Rain.  There are three major rooms, with a checkpoint before the third.  That third room is more of a general situation to figure out than an explicitly designed puzzle, and the checkpoint facilitates trying different strategies to overcome it.